artist - Robert John Holland
Robert John Holland

Symbiosis - symbolism

Growth - decay - regrowth

An essay by Cynnie Gaasch - Summer 2008

Robert John Holland maintains a symbiotic relationship with the world. He observes and describes the processes of building and "unbuilding". Symbiosis is defined as "an interaction between two different organisms living in close physical association, usually to the advantage of both." With his work he breathes, and in his relationship with the land he lives. It is evident that his intention is to maintain a relationship that allows the natural world to grow, breathe and continue in health.

The value of life - or humanity - as is seen through an investigation of the delicate balance of life and death. From flourishing to survival, onto decay and regrowth, this is the stuff of Robert Holland's work. The delicate balance of the natural world, and man's place in it, are at the core of his multi-media work, in video, photography, painting, sculpture, and installation.

The continuous thread throughout the many media in which Holland works is the adept drawing line. With his earliest photographs of tropical fish, the line is captured in the delicate fins. Later as he drew surrounded by music, dancing, and conversation in music clubs in Allentown and Colden, the rhythms and passions transformed into a line dancing through space as if the line itself is breathing.

Nature
Chaotic family life as a child brought Robert Holland to nature in search of order and a better understanding of the world. Water rivulets, ice crystals, tree branches, and masses of earth were the source for learning proportion, line, and balance. The physics of natural phenomenon come through Holland into his marks intuitively. A lifelong goal set early in life was to be a realist, to describe the landforms and light he observed in the hills and atmosphere. Early on Holland's interpretations of these forms was most clear in his work with welded steel.

Holland became an expert in aquarium life, creating temporal aerobic worlds for plants and fish. The aquarium life, dependent on human maintenance, is an expedited illustration of the delicate balance in nature.

Well of Life
Robert Holland's father was a well digger, and he taught his son to do the same.
If nature was the source of Holland's visual education, water is the element that most informs his facility with materials. Always experimental, almost all of Holland's work shows a fluidity of movement like water. Even the forms of mist and frozen water are evidenced in his surfaces.

An early understanding of the tenuous nature of a water well, and its careful balanced design also informs Holland's view of the world and his place in it. Holland's earliest painting, made with the tools of a paint by numbers out of a necessity to communicate visually, is a painting of a high waterfall which can also be viewed as a water well. The description in this painting is so articulate, that it is well beyond his years and impressively naturalistic.

White Roots of Peace (1980) again could be an illustration of the underworld mechanism of the water well. Holland already knew the precious necessity of water for the success of life. Here he predicts the movement of H2O into the realm of precious commodity, and its inevitable role in the coexistence of international societies.

Psychology
A man who feels the world heavy in his soul, Robert Holland also observes it in others. The same talent for capturing the spirit of a group of people interacting socially on film or in a drawing served in Holland's life as a social worker. He joined the Army and served as a Social Work Specialist during the Vietnam War, 1967-1970. He went on to study at a graduate level, and brought with him the ability to work politically with groups in developing successful communication. Eventually the burden of this work forced him to leave it behind, however its trace is left in the strength of his portrayal of ego and emotion throughout his oeuvre.


Melancholy
A sorrow is evident in much of Robert Holland's work. This is a longing for what the earth has lost. An environmentalist, Holland feels the wounds the world is experiencing deeply. The passing of localized community and agrarian economy is also evident. Consumer culture, the plastic explosion, corruption, and senseless waste affect the spirit of his work.

Spirit
In search of a system for ordering the chaos of the contemporary world, Robert Holland found Twylah Nitsch, the Clan Grandmother of the Wolf Clan of the Seneca Indian Tribe. With her he completed study of the Traditional Seneca Ways of Truth in 1994. A natural fit, the Native American priorities allowed Holland to embrace the culture. These ideals underlie the direction of his life and work.

Pathway of Peace
Robert Holland's instinct is to enhance the environment to benefit everyone. In a culture with Attention Deficit Disorder, it becomes, "How do you create a message that filters through?" Understanding longevity, Holland wrote, illustrated and published The Puzzle Has Four Pieces, a book that provides tools to live in grace with the earth. These tools are wisdom, integrity, stability and dignity.

Dancer
Physically agile, Robert Holland has always been a dancer, and his strength and ease in his body comes through in the art work. His movement through the world with grace, so as not to disturb the natural order, as is described in the movement of forms in his painting, photographs, sculpture, and video.

Grounding
Holland has been living at the top of a scenic hill in Arkwright, looking over the valley that leads to distant Lake Erie since 1993. Grounding is an ongoing, evolving installation. The 53-acre site includes orchards, reforestation, waterway restoration, wildlife habitat protection, erosion prevention, gardens and a working art studio. This largest work of art is a forum for study, respite, and inspiration. Here Holland cares for the macrocosm on the microcosm. Evidence of changing climate is evident in recent years, as the natural water resources do not keep up with drought.

 

Truth
The truest art comes out of makers who cannot help but create. Robert Holland is one of these artists. His life experience must come out in visual manifestations. The work evolves as he discovers new media, most recently working with video and sound to capture the world around him. He dissect his observations it through video, just enough to allow viewers to better see what is happening around them.

Holland has learned to have faith in meanders. Caring for his soul like a professional athlete trains their body, he maintains core stability through his maintenance of Grounding, and his own body through Qigong practice. Holland's time in Arkwright is crucial to the regeneration of his spirit, as is his time anonymously observing in crowds.

Sculpture
Making use of tools on hand while digging water wells, Holland's first significant body of work is the manipulated steel sculpture. Using found scraps, cutting and bending; Magical Vitality is an example of a complicated three-dimensional drawing with grace and balance. Describing the phenomenon of tree branches, ice crystals, dripping water, and lines in the land, this piece is like a three-dimensional landscape stretching elegantly into the sky.

Painting
In Holland's expressive painted works the line spreads out into fields of color. The breath comes when the washes overlap or open up to expose the innocence of a man who lives symbiotically with nature, pulls it in through his pores, and lets it seep into all that he makes.

Illustrative Paintings
Humor is portrayed in the more illustrative paintings where caricatures of farmers, musicians, chickens, and other animals portray the many personalities whom Holland observes. Cheer or melancholy is found in the movement of line as Holland guides his brush across the surface. Each individual is imbued with emotion.

Purple Fox (1982), one of Holland's early illustrative paintings embodies Holland's observation of nature. As a child he encountered a fox in a clearing and quietly sat with the animal. Finally the fox realized his presence and fled.

Photography
Photography has been the most direct mode for Holland to work. Here his color explodes when capturing tropical fish. In recent years digital photography has taken this medium to a new level, where images become futuristic landscapes. From idyllic scenes to total destruction the narrative is layered and rich as Holland is able to manipulate the image.

Digitized images often distill the elements that light obscures and allows us a glimpse of the "otherworld" we so often walk by without a forward or backward glance. From organic gardens to surreal abstractions, through careful manipulation, what is present becomes more visible.

Video
Movement and sound have been embraced with video works that capture the phenomena that Holland has been observing for a lifetime in real time. Here, he finds rhythms and patterns and pulls them out in order to illustrate the systems occurring naturally. Whether it is a walk through the woods, movement of water, dogs playing or hummingbirds feeding, Holland's camera is a witness to beauty. Also a tool for capturing truth, Holland uses the media to tell the stories of man's manipulation of the earth.

All Aboard
In All Aboard (2001-2008), Holland creates a satirical wasteland from detritus. Faded plastic toys, miniature everything, M&Ms, BBQ grills, Christmas tree lights, and glitter and spray paint build up to look like soot. Their moments of glory have passed. The cumulative effect of the waste, however is beautiful, the space is manipulated by a moving model train and captured images projected onto surrounding surfaces. All Aboard encapsulates reverence for life, the necessity of death, and evidence of rebirth coexist with the looming potential for catastrophe through unbalance.

Both micro- and macro-cosmic, from a distance the architectural form is sailing ship. Up close, a micro-culture is circled by trains, and pulses with an assisted breathing machine. Scale is continuously challenged giving the piece a futuristic, post apocalyptic feel. Viewers are incorporated into the continuous transformation of the piece both through images captured by hidden video cameras, and the malleable nature of the ever-changing accumulation of cast offs on the train board's surface.

This project proposes the metaphor of our minds as landfills, where memories are buried, released and recycled. A real life landfill traps and wastes resources, representing anaerobic to the extreme. A psychic compost for the collective soil, simultaneously decaying and growing.

 

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