Latitude 53 Contemporary Visual Culture

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Dana Holst will be at the gallery installing her Incubator show tomorrow. Before you come to check it out (at Latitude until July 14!) here’s some more info about Dana and the work she’ll be showing. Dana Holst is a Canadian artist with a BFA in Fine Arts from the University of Waterloo (1994). She has shown her paintings and drawings across Canada and currently lives and works in Edmonton, Alberta. Working with themes of social stereotyping and power struggles between the sexes, Holst is preoccupied with depicting the female experience. Her girl figures are usually dressed in frilly costumes with matching hair bows and equally menacing emotions. Mysterious scenarios for the wayward girls include hunting for wild animals and living out fairytale fantasies in an attempt to find and exert power. Holst’s work may be found in the public collections of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts (Edmonton, AB), Agnes Etherington Art Centre, (Kingston, ON), Art Bank (Ottawa, ON), Glenbow Museum (Calgary, AB) and private collections in Canada, the United States and Europe. Upcoming exhibitions include Crush at Katharine Mulherin Contemporary Art Projects (Toronto - December 2012) and Betwixt and Between with artist Jude Griebel at Reach Museum (Abbotsford, BC – t.b.a. 2014). The catalogue Sometimes Rainbows are Black, which features works from Holst’s last three exhibitions — Prey, True Romance, and Sometimes Rainbows are Black — will be available at Latitude 53. Artist Statement Since 1995 I have been creating drawings and oil paintings of little girls engaged in various stereotypical acts and functions such as wielding brooms and cleaning house, wearing frilly outfits and leaping through the air as ballet dancers. My interest has revolved around the powers of social conformity adults place upon girls to behave in ways befitting/conforming to their sex. My current body of work titled Sometimes Rainbows are Black investigates notions of depression and despair from a feminine and albeit personal perspective in relation to rites of passage: puberty, marriage and death. The installation Sometimes Rainbows are Black features a large rainbow rug in shades of mourning. Made of antique wedding dresses painted black and cut into thin strips, the silk was entirely hooked by hand using historical methods. A meditation on the repetitive and mind-soothing nature of women’s work, this piece is about hopes/desires of young girls in relation to marriage obsessing on loss of individuality/creativity as the self becomes cloaked in the we. This piece is based on the lives of both of my grandmothers, women who married men who were controlling in forms both psychological and physical.

Dana Holst will be at the gallery installing her Incubator show tomorrow. Before you come to check it out (at Latitude until July 14!) here’s some more info about Dana and the work she’ll be showing.

Dana Holst is a Canadian artist with a BFA in Fine Arts from the University of Waterloo (1994). She has shown her paintings and drawings across Canada and currently lives and works in Edmonton, Alberta.

Working with themes of social stereotyping and power struggles between the sexes, Holst is preoccupied with depicting the female experience. Her girl figures are usually dressed in frilly costumes with matching hair bows and equally menacing emotions. Mysterious scenarios for the wayward girls include hunting for wild animals and living out fairytale fantasies in an attempt to find and exert power.

Holst’s work may be found in the public collections of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts (Edmonton, AB), Agnes Etherington Art Centre, (Kingston, ON), Art Bank (Ottawa, ON), Glenbow Museum (Calgary, AB) and private collections in Canada, the United States and Europe.

Upcoming exhibitions include Crush at Katharine Mulherin Contemporary Art Projects (Toronto - December 2012) and Betwixt and Between with artist Jude Griebel at Reach Museum (Abbotsford, BC – t.b.a. 2014). The catalogue Sometimes Rainbows are Black, which features works from Holst’s last three exhibitions — Prey, True Romance, and Sometimes Rainbows are Black — will be available at Latitude 53.

Artist Statement

Since 1995 I have been creating drawings and oil paintings of little girls engaged in various stereotypical acts and functions such as wielding brooms and cleaning house, wearing frilly outfits and leaping through the air as ballet dancers. My interest has revolved around the powers of social conformity adults place upon girls to behave in ways befitting/conforming to their sex.

My current body of work titled Sometimes Rainbows are Black investigates notions of depression and despair from a feminine and albeit personal perspective in relation to rites of passage: puberty, marriage and death. The installation Sometimes Rainbows are Black features a large rainbow rug in shades of mourning. Made of antique wedding dresses painted black and cut into thin strips, the silk was entirely hooked by hand using historical methods. A meditation on the repetitive and mind-soothing nature of women’s work, this piece is about hopes/desires of young girls in relation to marriage obsessing on loss of individuality/creativity as the self becomes cloaked in the we. This piece is based on the lives of both of my grandmothers, women who married men who were controlling in forms both psychological and physical.

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