Aaron Holz

Aaron Holz's work explores the materiality of paint and the psychological space in and around the figures and objects he depicts. Often referencing painters as divergent as Goya and Darger, Holz combines this dialogue with past practitioners with found contemporary images of wrestlers, sunbathers, floral arrangements and landscape. The diverse nature and utilization of mediums pushes the paintings into a purposely-conflated world of illusion and abstraction. The result is work brimming with desire and longing for a world rendered illusory through unusual juxtapositions of subject matter, heightened and saturated colors, and vertiginous special arrangements.

Holz' solo exhibitions include A Heart's Hot Shell, RARE Gallery, New York, New York (2011); Of Heads & Hands, Focus Gallery, Sheldon Museum of Art, Lincoln, USA (2010).Portraits, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, Nebraska City, USA (2009); Takedown, Rourke Art Museum, Moorhead, Minnesota, USA (2009). Group exhibitions and Projects include [When We Dead Awaken]; Beers.Lambert Contemporary, (Feb 2012); [After School Special], University Art Museum, Albany, New York (2011); What Would Dante Do?Rourke Art Museum, Moorhead, Minnesota, USA (2011); Single Fare, 224 Grand, Brooklyn, New York, (2010); and Face Forward, LeRoy Neiman Gallery, New York, New York, (2009), He is recipient of the Harold & Esther Edgerton Assistant Professor of Painting Award (2009); and the Nebraska Artists Council Distinguished Artist Award (2007). His work has been published in the New York Times, Lincoln Journal Star, and NY Arts Magazine. He holds a Master's degree from University at Albany, New York.