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ART IN AMERICA MAR 'O9



BOSTON
HOLLY FARRELL
CHASE

Born in North Bay, Ontario, and currently based in Toronto, Holly Farrell has exhibited her realist paintings across Canada and in a variety of venues in the States. In her first show at Chase, the self-taught artist presented 22 small acrylic and oil-on-Masonite still lifes and interiors (all 2007 or 2008).

Over the years Farrell has displayed an eye for the vintage, painting, among other objects, classic toy cars ("Dinky Toys") and a vacuum cleaner right out of a '50s appliance catalogue. This penchant for the old-fashioned continues unabated. Among the standouts in the Chase exhibition were depictions of five fashionable women's hats from an earlier era. In these vertical pieces (each measures 15 1/2 by 8 1/2 inches), the precisely rendered hats, with their pins, bows and veils, perch on stands and are set off by a background of decorative wallpaper.

The show also featured a multipanelled painting of 12 different juice cups, each panel measuring 8 by 7 inches and all arranged on the wall in a grid. These are the kinds of items that show up in yard sales - the last of a set won at a carnival, perhaps, or acquired with a fill-up at an old Sunoco station. Farrell meticulously reproduces their simple patterns and motifs - stripes, daffodils, a kerosene lamp - and conveys their humble presence. Each casts a small shadow on a white wall.

Since she began showing in 1995, Farrell has also depicted a range of bare-bones interiors furnished minimally a folded-up cot, an unassuming kitchen ensemble. In Armchair (14 by 18 inches), a well-padded, dull-hued chair is a stocky and squat presence in a spare space with an off-white wall and wide board flooring.

Whether she is intentionally nostalgic or not, Farrell plays on sentiment in her choice of subjects. Twin portraits of period Ken and Barbie dolls - he in football gear, she in a cheerleader outfit - evoke a kind of "Twilight Zone" eeriness: lifeless playthings that look as though they might start speaking. Whether a bowl or an arrangement of well-used children's books, whatever Farrell paints takes on a patina of history, personal and cultural. Yet you can read just so much into these paintings before backing off to simply admire the thoughtfulness with which each item is represented.

--- Carl Little

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Another face for Tammy - Nov 2010


Kumi Matsumaru / Daily Yomiuri - November 26th, 2010

"I had known she painted Barbie dolls, usually full-length. I prefer Tammy dolls, however, so I suggested she paint a bust portrait of Tammy. She wasn't sure about it at first, but ended up liking the results. She even told me she doesn't want to sell her first Tammy painting," gallery owner Megumi Ogita says, recalling how artist Holly Farrell began painting the doll.

"It was at this point that painting Tammy in this style became her new theme. Her Tammys are a good expression of the antique, novel feelings that normally appear in her work," Ogita continues.

Holly Farrell "Tammy," an exhibition at Ogita's gallery Showcase in Ginza, Tokyo, is a small show of four works by the Toronto-based artist. But the oil and acrylic works, framed by Farrell herself, are rich with nostalgia and unusual feelings that leave gallerygoers with a sense of satisfaction. "Her works may appear a mere reproduction at first glance, but there is something novel about them," Ogita says. "They are not realist; they are something more than mere photographs. At the same time, they elaborately relate the feeling of 'being well-worn,'" Ogita said.

Farrell is known for paintings that depict the feelings of use, applied to things found at home or elsewhere in our lives.

Besides dolls, for example, Farrell has painted a pair of pink satin shoes, a doctor's bag, a water jug, a floor lamp, and hair pins and curlers.

All of them come with a sense of ease and relief through their delicate dreamy colors, three-dimensional appearance and texture, like that of an old enamel bowl.

Farrell, who started painting first as a hobby, turned professional in 1995. The self-taught artist works mainly in North America, where Ogita discovered her paintings while at an art fair in Miami.

"Tammy, which is neither as stylish or as well-known as Barbie, has a large head. But the doll has a devoted fanbase thanks to its look," Ogita said.

One of the most impressive parts of Farrell's Tammy paintings are the backgrounds, which conjure up images of the wallpaper one might find in a New England home, with their pale colors and floral patterns that evoke an innocence and highlight the well-worn expressions of the dolls in the foreground.

Ogita, whose mission is to introduce works by unique but relatively unknown artists from around the world at Showcase and Megumi Ogita Gallery, also in Ginza, says: "She recently started painting elderly people. She may be particularly talented at that because she deals with history."

--Kumi Matsumaru

"Holly Farrell 'Tammy,'" until Dec.18 at Showcase in Ginza, Tokyo. Open noon to 7 p.m. Closed on Sundays, Mondays and national holidays. Admission free. For further information, visit www.megumiogita.com/Showcase/index.html.

 

 

By Bill Clarke - Magenta Magazine - Fall 2010

Holly Farrell: Even Closer
Katharine Mulherin Contemporary Art Projects
June 10 - July 4, 2010

Holly Farrell is a self-taught painter who first picked up a palette and brush at the age of 28 (she is now in her late-40s). Her first works were paintings of retro kitchen cupboard objects — drinking glasses, juice pitchers, candy dishes — or objects like simple wooden chairs and rain boots. Rendered with enough painterly flourishes so they weren’t completely photorealist, these paintings were charming and pretty accomplished from a technical perspective, but it felt like the most one could say about them was that they were very nicely done.

Farrell’s most recent paintings, however, seem like a move towards something more substantial. In a suite of 12 paintings, Farrell portrays vintage Barbie and Ken dolls from the late-50s and early-60s. The paintings are fraught with all of the baggage around gender roles of that period. (Fans of the TV show “Mad Men” would probably love these paintings.)  Each of the male dolls have the same brush cut hairstyle, baby-blue eyes, earnest (and vaguely quizzical) expressions, and jackets and ties, while the female dolls have evasive doe-eyes, bee-stung lips and stiffly coiffed hairstyles. One of the ‘Kens’ is dressed in a doctor’s smock, while one of the ‘Barbies’ sports a nurse’s cap. All of the female dolls are depicted against colourful floral backgrounds suggestive of the wallpaper in domestic settings, while the men are set against neutral backgrounds; the implication being that, for the most part, women’s movements were, at that time, limited to particular spheres, while men could pretty much go anywhere (although those places were also rather conformist and sterile). In two slightly larger paintings, the Barbies escape their domestic settings, but only on the arms of their men — one is a wedding portrait, while the other shows the ‘happy couple’ on vacation at the beach.

Such subject matter suits Farrell’s tightly controlled painting style, allowing her to capture the sense of the uncanny that arises from any representation of a human being (and these are representations of representations, which further amplifies their otherness). The feeling of strangeness is also enhanced by the paintings’ sizes, which are on the small side of most painting nowadays, but the subjects are still bigger than life. While nostalgia may have motivated Farrell to paint these works, viewers are also reminded of the role even seemingly benign things such as toys have had in suggesting who we should aspire to be.

 

 

blog TO: Art Agenda - July 2010

Even Closer: Holly Farrell from June 9 - Jul 4, 2010

At Katharine Mulherin, Holly Farrell is showing her paintings of Barbie and Ken. Paintings of Barbie are actually a virtual genre unto themselves and have been common for decades. Farrell's are distinctive for their elegance and disarming serenity. It's almost like a Zen take on art nouveau portraiture. However, her paintings of Ken are far more impressive for the utterly unnerving degree of anxiety she imbues them with. While Barbie plays dress-up with ease, his shifts from one outfit to the next have a nearly schizoid quality.

It's a fascinating and intimate show which manages to raise all sorts of disturbing implications about the nature of viewership and empathy, as well as more art worldly type topics like: what constitutes a still life and what is a portrait? Can you even paint a portrait of a doll? If a portrait is meant to convey some hint or peek into a subject's inner world through their stance and gaze, what does a mass produced object relate? Of course, it's not as though Ken can feel anything, or does he?

Boston Herald, December 2009

Chase Gallery is featuring Holly Farrell this December, and I have to say, she’s one of my favorites. Using acrylics and oil on masonite, Farrell paints still-life’s out of everyday objects and makes them interesting, but make no mistake these are not your grandmothers still-life paintings.

In the above painting, ‘Barbie Ski Queen and Ken Ski Champion’, she captures the duo in style and with a whimsical snowflake pattern background that lends itself perfectly to the Barbi phenom era.

‘Sofa’ is a fantastic piece of composition and color. The empty wall space above the couch leaves room for the imagination and provides a nice juxtaposition to the heavily patterned couch. The patterned floor adds just enough weight to the bottom of the painting, without taking away from the simplicity of it.

Holly Farrell is a self-taught painter who didn’t start painting till she was 29. She sold her first painting at 31. She is now a full-time artist and is represented by 6 different galleries. If you get a chance, head out to the Chase gallery this month and see in person what all the buzz is about. You won’t be disappointed.

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Seattle Post-Intelligencer - August 10, 2009. Art to Go

All I need is a room somewhere,
far away in the cold night air,.
with one enormous chair.


Oh wouldn't it be lovely. (From "My Fair Lady")

Eliza Doolittle was not singing about a showroom sofa. She longed for the broken-in beauty of a used object, softened around its edges but still supple in its springs, exactly what Holly Farrell paints and the reason for her success.
Farrell paints dainty things with good bone structures. They aren't just tennis rackets, shoes and shelves of books, they are repositories of memory. If Bladerunner's Dr. Eldon Tyrell wanted the replicant Rachael to be a happy homemaker instead of siren secretary, he would have filled her head with Farrell.


The child whose mother used these cookbooks ate well......No new tennis balls in Farrell's paintings.

What saves her work from other feel-good fantasies is the exactitude of her depiction, her spare grace. Next to hers, Thomas Kinkade's smeary landscapes are bloated frauds. There is also in Farrell's work an undertone of elegy. The shoes below date from the early 1950s. It's not likely that their owner still wears them. They are what you'd find cleaning out your mother's closet after her death.


If your mother favored florals and wore
high heels, they pierce your heart.

NOW Magazine FEBRUARY 2008


Still lifes that move you

 

HOLLY FARRELL BRINGS THE HUMAN ELEMENT
INTO PAINTINGS OF OBJECTS

By DAVID JAGER, NOW Magazine, February 28th, 2008
Holly Farrell at Katharine Mulherin (1088 Queen West), to March 15. 416-536-8827.

Rating: NNNN

Holly Farrell calls her still lifes portraits without any people in them. These new paintings by the self-taught artist are spare, exquisitely focused studies of simple, often old objects. They're meticulously painted domestic things that somehow convey the imprint of their owners.
As in portraiture, their overall impact often hinges on the smallest details. The olive wallpaper behind the yellow pumps in Shoes has a faint star pattern that speaks to their age, creating a palpable sense of history and narrative. In her painting of apothecary bottles, faded labels and turn-of-the-century shapes are enhanced by the addition of a few scattered blue pills. The objects in these tightly controlled works often convey loneliness. A wall phone looks as if it's waiting to be answered, and the furnishings in Couch and Chair seem to long for sitters.
Farrell's work can also flirt with the kitschy fetishism of pop realism. Her brilliantly painted assortment of juice cups are a thrift store comber's wet dream. Her Barbie and Ken dolls, though charmingly painted, teeter on the verge of glib parody. There's no denying her strength as a painter, however, when she gets it right. Seeds allows a full dialogue between absence and presence to play out: the images on seed packets behind empty pots make the absent blossoms all the more palpable.


SEATTLEWEEKLY - MAY 2007


HOLLY FARRELL Garde Rail Gallery

Tashiro-Kaplan Building - 110 Third Ave. S., 621-1055
Daily from Thu., April 19 until Sat, May 26, 2007

By Brian J. Jarr

There is a pretty eerie vibe resonating from each of Holly Farrell's works. Her skillfully rendered oil paintings of solitary objects - shoes, dolls, water pitchers, wooden chairs, and cookbooks, all leaning against old wallpaper- make your spine and shoulders stiffen. Like a shoebox of sepia-toned photographs, Farrell's paintings evoke something completely out of time. The objects she paints are all antiques, with a yellowed, aged quality to each. Unlike most outsider artists, Farrell is a meticulous painter; her works take on a real-life presence, and rumour has it she'll scrap an entire canvas if there is so much as a single errant paint bubble on the surface. Because they are so perfect, I find it hard to label her as an outsider artist, but she is most definitely a folk artist. I also find it hard to classify her paintings as still life, because these objects all have personality. Farrell said it best herself: "I realized I was really painting portraits without any people in them."

SEATTLE magazine -



EDITOR'S PICKS - STILL COOL

We've never been fans of still-life painting. OK, some of Cezanne's still lifes were exquisite, but for the most part a bowl of fruit, no matter how beautifully rendered, is still just a bowl of fruit. But then we saw Toronto artist HOLLY FARRELL's elegantly simple portraits of antique kitchen chairs, old water pitchers and other worn tools of domesticity, and we decided to give the tired old genre another chance. Farrell's paintings reflect her deep understanding of how certain inanimate objects - when portrayed in the right light and setting - can be utterly haunting and soulful. As long as this self-taught painter continues to work, we say long live still life.

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Ware Magazine - April 2011

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TORONTO STAR
Visual Arts

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2003

Still life with meditation
Holly Farrell's simple images have depth. Painting and aloneness coexist in work.
By PETER GODARD

In the archeology of emptying an uninhabited old house, the big grown-up type things are dealt with first. Then comes the smaller stuff. You start at the point where your parents have died. But as the process evolves, you go back in time to the point when you first entered the picture.

This is pretty much the trip any small Holly Farrell still-life takes you on. It's not about childhood, although "Childhood - New Paintings" is the title and toys are among the painter's favourite images. In fact, the show at her Dundas Street W studio includes some 30 small paintings of Dinky Toys, each well handled and well loved. Earlier work includes portraits of fuzzie bunnies, well-used china dolls and toy bikes. Yet her work deals with an understanding of that distant solitude of childhood. With Farrell, the idea of solitude has more to do with the painting than the painter, although she's not always been understood this way. Yet ongoing critical reaction to Farrell - who turns 42 Saturday - almost always includes some reference to melancholy. One writer went so far as to suggest that "Proust would have loved" her work.

But for Farrell, growing up as one of seven kids, getting away on her own from the diner her family ran on Hwy 11 in Trout Creek, near North Bay, were often times of peace. Clearly she liked to play. Look at her paintings of the little red dump truck or teddy bear and you can sense they were once considered to be pretty perky items in their day. For Farrell, who has a husband, five cats and a busy studio, aloneness and being alone are miles a part. In a recent episode about her on Bravo!'s The Artist Life series, she admitted that she feels most centred when she's focused on her painting, "Maybe that's why I loved solitude," she said.

Because she's largely self-taught, it's perhaps easy to lump her in with the rest of the naif artists, although thinking along this line would force you to include Italian painter Giorgio Morandi in this axis of the wilfully simple. Farrell's no Morandi, at least not yet. Yet her works share with his sense of discovery, as if you've never seen what you're seeing as quite as memorable as they now seem. It's as if the artist's added something unseen to their mass. Gravity's pull on them feels much greater than it should be.

Like Morandi's, Farrell's work denies any critical attempt to mine them for symbolic content. If they're about childhood, it's a remarkably private childhood, no analysts allowed. Same too, with the objects she uses - or the objects she comes upon. Her paintings act as spies, seemingly catching their subject unprepared. Yet the toys, placed so neatly against a wall, do seem prepared for something. There's an aspect of performance to them, even if it is just the act of aging as we watch. The well-defined outline easily controls the interior spread of muted colour. They appear in sharp relief against their backgrounds.

Yet for all this, she maintains she's less a part of the tradition of still-life painters and closer to portrait-makers, "perhaps because of my approach to composition," she writes in an email. "All the time I try to keep the focus on the subject ... It was very soon after I'd completed the first few paintings that I realized I was working toward more than a study - they resonated for me in a way that's hard to describe. It would be easy to say they made me feel nostalgic (a bit of nostalgia is good medicine for everyone!), that the subject took me back to a place or a time or reminded me of someone - because it is that, but it's something else. I love (Mark) Rothko's work, and the impact his simple two-colour canvasses have when you first see them. But then that initial impression evolves or settles into a more long term meditative calm, so you can stare at one forever and not feel like you're wasting your time. I would love to have my work resonate in a similar way."

The Globe And Mail   Friday, July 7, 2000
By Leah Hendry
Art al Fresco: Up Close And Personal (excerpt)
Holly Farrell does James Whistler at her Toronto studio Holly Farrell might still be painting houses if not for the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition. "Art is the one place I have found in my life that I feel comfortable," Farrell said. The exhibition is a highly desirable show for artists, not only for the exposure - about 100,000 people pass through Nathan Phillips Square at Toronto City Hall over three days - but also as a way for artists to break into the market. Farrell's foray into the art world happened eight years ago when a friend suggested that she submit some slides to the show. Much to her surprise, she was accepted into the Folk Art category. "The show was responsible for me being able to make a career out of my art," said Farrell, who lives and paints in Toronto. "It's great for artists who are just starting out; who don't have access to galleries." She now has a loyal clientele, some of whom have grown with her through her transitions and followed her various gallery showings. "There are people who normally shop in the Yorkville galleries and there are also kids out of high school looking for art - the range is so broad," Farrell said. She continues to show her work at the exhibition and also stages an annual studio show.

 Summer 1999
Lola magazine

By George Van Bussel

"Compact, realistic paintings of worn household objects on the verge of discard infuse the mundane items of our world with both a reassuring and disturbing sense of the familiar ... to look at something handled countless of times before like it's something completely inscrutable. The show breathes a new sense of purpose into that old genre we've almost forgotten: the interior Still-Life."


May 1998 - "Sharp Dresser"By Karen von Hahn.

Proust would have loved painter Holly Farrell. Her moody, often melancholy depictions of commonplace objects, like a rollawaycot, metal lawn chair or china teacup, are the Canuck equivalent of his reverie-inducing madeleine. Farrell, an artist from Burks Falls who has gathered a strong local following, started painting familiar objects like furniture to teach herself how to draw. "When they started to take on a character of their own," says Farrell, "I realized I was really painting portraits without any people in them."

 



November 2009


small magazine - september/october:

 

 
Norbert Marszalek of Neotericart: Online interview with Holly Farrell - June 2008

bowl-flower.jpgNeoteric Art: You are a self-taught painter born in Canada where you still live and work. Along the way have you ever considered art school?

Holly Farrell: When I began painting it was to alleviate the stress of day to day dealings of an emotionally draining job. I was heavily influenced by folk painting/tole painting which was fairly easy for me—copying and applying designs to wood, metal and paper. It was very much a hobby at this point—I was 29 years old. This process became too repetitive for me and I eventually moved on to canvases. I tried for a while to paint my own ‘primitive’ paintings but felt they weren’t very successful paintings. I felt that in order to be a good artist I should learn how to draw—that all good artists knew how to draw. Having no time or the funds for art school I felt my only option was to “wing it”. I would take things from my apartment…the day-to-day things that were part of my life and sit them down in front of me. These things became my subjects to practise my drawing. When I was ready to paint I applied the same technique I had learned with wood. The thought was always in my mind to eventually make it to art school to learn more about technique and art in general but I never got around to it. I think the day-to-day experiences I have with my paint have been my education. I certainly feel lucky that painting is my life. I think art school may help people develop skills and explore different methods in making art and it provides an atmosphere that encourages creativity. I wonder how different my life might have been in such an atmosphere.

glove-low-resolution.jpgNA: Your subject matter frequently incorporates a single object ranging from shoes, bowls, toys, hats, bow ties…and also with sparse room settings involving chairs, televisions, desks…. Describe your thinking and/or working process.

HF: I like to think I’m intuitive when it comes to choosing subject matter. I’m not a big planner. I’m also very impatient and when I think about something for too long the idea usually gets stale for me. I like being surprised when I paint so I don’t like to think too far ahead. As Still Life was initially a tool for me to learn how to draw and then paint, it was an accident that the paintings became my devotions to things common. I really do feel connected to the things that I paint. The subjects I paint are not always rooted in good memories - sometimes I’m trying to work out something ‘bad’ from the past. This has actually helped me find some good in the things that happened to me, an acceptance maybe? Anyway, I began painting only singular subjects for the most part—portraits of things, but during the past couple of years I have been attempting paintings of simple scenes which are a challenge to do because I am trying to keep the sense of Portraiture, the sense that we are looking at one thing, one thought, one memory.   Growing up in various towns along a highway I had friends who lived in town, on farms, in the woods—all walks of life it seemed. So I have direct experience with many of the subjects that I paint and I connect my subjects with the people, places or times I have known. I think of these things while I paint and try to ‘get it right’. And sometimes I change what I do (a little) when I think it needs it. I am not a realist painter. I think the best description for me, as one critic put it, is that I am a “folk realist”. I think this is because my work still has that folk element that comes with being self-taught. I struggle with what I see and what I feel and hope that the choices I make for a painting are the right ones. 2008-bow-ties-chase.jpg

NA: Which painters have been inspirational and influential for you…and why?

HF: I am not sure that there have been painters that have actually inspired me to paint in the manner that I paint—I had never intended to become a painter, I just kept going once I started. I love the work of John Brown who is a well respected Canadian painter. There was a retrospective of his work here in Toronto a couple of months ago which was breathtaking. I really like Mark Rothko’s work. I like how they make me feel. It’s odd but I find myself drawn to Abstract art more than Still Life. An exception would be Morandi. Someone referred to him during one of my shows and I looked him up - I have been a fan ever since. In the past ten years there has been a growing interest in art in Toronto that has enabled artists like Jennifer Harrison, Melissa Doherty and Douglas Walker (to name a few) to work at their painting full-time. In this kind of climate, where I, as well as my friends/peers are enjoying some success, it is difficult not to feel positive about working as a painter. Last, but not least, I do have to give great credit to many anonymous folk artists whose work I have seen here and there, in books and magazines. I initially wanted to be a ‘real’ primitive painter but it wasn’t in the cards. I feel I am still rooted in the folk aesthetic, mainly in it’s simplicity of form and colour and I think this is always in the back of my mind when I paint.

NA: You are represented by 3 galleries in Canada and 2 in the US. How has your experience been dealing with these varied galleries?

Working with galleries is fairly new to me as for the past 16 years I have sold most of my work through my studio. I had always felt that a gallery should be able to do more for the artist than the artist could do for themselves. As art was my only income I had to consider what it would mean to give a gallery 50%—what for, right? Well, galleries can offer exposure to new people, and should the work sell will result in higher prices. I have been lucky so far to have had good experiences with my galleries. I am still selling work on my own but the majority of my income now comes from the galleries.

NA: What are some of your short and long term goals for your work?

HF: At present, short term goals go into 2009. With art, life seems to be allocated into six month segments which go fairly quickly. Starting August I will be focussing on a solo show in Vancouver for January which is then followed by a solo show in Tokyo in March. Doing shows for galleries allows me to plan a group of paintings for a specific space that will hang well together—something that I wasn’t as concerned with working on my own. I don’t really have any long term goals—I’m a bit superstitious that way. I will consider myself very lucky if I can continue to support myself painting as it’s the only job I’ve had that I’ve been able to do with any success. And I actually love what I do. Maybe, sometime in the future, I would like to experiment a bit—find time to try some ‘loose’ painting…whatever that means. I always strive to be a better painter.