London based artist Ross Holden graduated with a BA in Illustration and MA in Fine Art from UCA, and very early on established an impressive career in illustration, advertising and publishing. Notably, Holden joined the prestigious ranks of artists including Man Ray, David Hockney and Paul Nash when he received his first large-scale commission from Transport for London to create their promotional campaigns. Alongside his successful commercial design work, Holden worked extensively to build up his own illustration portfolio, using digital fine art to create limited edition prints that explored moments from history as well as personal memories - Lunar Landings, Picnics at Dungeness, trips to New York, Brighton and Berlin.
This early desire to capture important moments through his art is a theme that would end up permeating much of Holden’s future work. Whilst travelling central Asia for four years, Holden took an extended break from making art and instead focused on collecting ideas, memories, and experiences - taking numerous notes and photographs throughout his travels and building up a collection of over 12,000 of them! These materials now act as an important source for Holden’s current work as he aims to revisit these memories, and break them down into abstract fields of pattern and colour.
‘‘In a complex world I feel that I stop time and hold it in its simplest form…’’
After returning from Asia, Holden decided to ‘un-digitize’ his art, creating two of his first screen-prints for Eyestorm.
13 Million Miles (Diamond) and
300 billion miles (In The Past) released in late 2017 and early 2018 respectively, were both inspired by the same source material - the numerous photographs and notes taken throughout Holden’s travels. These mesmerizing kaleidoscopic screen-prints replicate a pattern collected on the Silk Road in Central Asia, with each colour block representing a certain memory from his trip. The colours represent both literal objects, people, and places, as well as particular emotions or feelings Holden experienced.
Pursuing this new direction away from the digital medium and towards more hands-on crafts, 2018 certainly saw an important shift in Holden’s practice. Creating his own bespoke interlocking panels, and breaking down his imagery more than ever before to even simpler representations of colour, Holden released his first painted artworks with Eyestorm that year. As individual pieces the paintings are much simpler than Holden’s screen-prints, however when put together, they have the same mesmerizing visual impact. Uniquely, the paintings exist as both individual artworks, or as any number of interlocking panels, which combine in seemingly infinite variations with the potential to become much larger, more complex pieces.
Like a lot of abstract painting, the simplicity of the works, which eliminate all reference to the figurative world can be challenging for the viewer to interpret. This is perhaps why Holden gives us clues in his titles - such as
Crocodile Market,
Tank Top, or
Punkah Wallah, alongside a time-stamp (recorded on his camera) which indicates the exact moment from which the image is taken. These paintings may be specific to the artist’s own experiences, but through the use of universal colours and simple shapes, Holden hopes that they could also bring to the surface, the memories of others.
Ross Holden has done major work in the field of commercial work and design. However, it is through his Fine Art inspired by life’s unique moments that Holden has been able to establish himself as one of Eyestorm’s most promising contemporary artists. Having worked with Holden since 2008, we have been fortunate to see him develop his art from digital prints, through to screen-printing and now an exciting practice in painting. It is perhaps unique for an artist to take an extended break from their art to travel the world - however since his return, Holden’s new artistic direction is original, inspired, and filled with life experience. We can certainly say it was worth the wait!