Paintings on a new theme are underway

Work for a new cluster of paintings on canvas has begun. They are an assortment of images sprouted from the theme of Place/Memory. They are different to my paintings from the previous 3 years in that they: (A) don't feature characters or prominent figures, just representations of various locations that build a narrative aspect, and (B) are built up exclusively by drawing and texture. One of the ambitions in the production is to combine (in layers) a medley of the techniques which I've explored newly over the past year. We'll know how they look after several of them are complete, so stay tuned.



Finding out where the new idea goes.








After the conclusion of open studio - 10/23/11




Sessions for new work - 10/2011.

"A Happy Ending" features 37 artists online

I have just seen the first online visual art exhibition I like.
'Kudos' is what I'd like to say. 'High five!'

If there's going to be a countless amount of them, well then it's nice to have some favor.

D. Beasley, Curator of Marco Polo arts mag in Atlanta, has just published an exhibition for the literary arts journal. Here is the link.

Scrolling down the page, one finds a single image by each of the 37 artists. In the sore lack of plastic construction in contemporary art, it was a welcome surprise to see many images that had traces of fine visual tactility. That's aside from a bit of kinkiness in some of the subject matter. I liked the piece Untited, by Jieun Kim: a graphite and ink on Korean paper, which created lovely echos of the feelings I have for Persian miniature painting. The theme of the exhibit is connected to the genius film titan Francois Truffaut. Nice tag! (if titled-related only).


Untitled, by Jieun Kim

Peter Bonner & his work, "At Service..."

Visit to Peter Bonner's studio - Brooklyn, N.Y.

The last time I had been to Peter's ("PB", for short) studio was New Year's Day, 2008. Last week I stopped by again for what must have been my third visit (and the first since PB got a fine arts Masters degree through the University of Melbourne, which is very near to where he's from).

For this post I wanted to show some pictures of his recent, plentiful work. The above oil on canvas is a portrait of one of his friends that he said took him a few years to resolve. It's stunning. He mentioned to me at least once, as I strolled about and took photographs, that for the past two years his process of creating and finishing paintings has found its connection to their raison d'etre. In the case of PB, their reason for being is usually the resolution of actual experiences via memory, many of them from the desert in Australia. I heard him say this about the new stage of his work: "at service to something" (that sounds a bit like a golden award for painters). What each piece is specifying (in terms of the experiences that PB is getting at) may not be instantly evident upon first view. They take some good looking. I hope we get to see them in person sometime soon.

PB creates enough space in his life to lead a sizable amount of inter-disciplinary activities, let alone managing to be a full-time painter. He has a choir to sing in. He meditates. He's a new daddy.

By the way, it's possible for people like you and I to be written about on Wikipedia.
See the wiki page on Peter.

Installation at D.C. Arts Center group show

Below are shots of each wall installation. The works of each contributing artist were interspersed consistently across each wall.

Exhibition of DC/VA painting begins with "slippery boundaries"

The paintings from 2009-2010 that I have recently finished will get their premier gallery exposure in this exhibit: "Paint Mix: Five DC/VA Painters" coming soon....

D.C. Arts Center
2438 18th St NW
Washington, DC 20009

Paint Mix: Five DC/VA Painters

February 11 - March 13 , 2011

Opening Reception: February 11, 7-9 pm
Artist talk: March 13, 5 pm

Gallery hours:
Wed - Sun, 2 - 7 pm

Featuring work by:

Emily Do

Christopher Dolan

Mike Dowley

Brian Kelley

Joren Lindholm (one of my inclusions is shown below)

Curated by Rebecca Kallem

"Paint Mix: Four DC/VA Painters" highligts the work of four emerging painters who live and work in Virginia and Washington, DC. Curator Rebecca Kallem invites Emily Do, Christopher Dolan, Mike Dowley, Brian Kelley, and Joren Lindholm to show their work. As a group, the paintings play with the slippery boundaries between abstraction, representation, and non-objective art. Whether showing us a recognizable landscape or a cluster of shapes, each artist makes a beautiful mix of colors, marks, feelings, and ideas."

'Vertical Latitude', 2010
Joren Lindholm
oil on canvas, 16 x 20

Nicolas Caroni dies

(Post fed as reference to wikipedia.org page on Nicolas Carone)

Lohin Geduld Gallery in Chelsea made the following statement today:

"Nicolas Carone, 1917 - 2010. It is with sadness that we tell you of the death of Nicolas Carone. Nick died at his home in Hudson, NY on July 15. Nick touched many lives as an inspiring teacher and brilliant artist."

According to wikipedia, Nicolas Carone was "an Italian-American painter and sculptor, born June 4, 1917 in New York City and raised in Hoboken, New Jersey. Carone belonged to the early generation of New York School Abstract Expressionist artists, whose artistic innovation by the 1950s had been recognized across the Atlantic, including Paris."

I find there to be a humorous stroke of irony in the way Nick Carone and his work gets tied to the subject of Abstract Expressionism. As far as I can see, there's seldom any mention that Carone's pictures were most often figurative throughout the span of his life. An example is this work done when he was eighty-six.

Untitled, 2003, mixed media on paper, 10 3/4 x 11 inches (private collection)

My Review of Jim Condron

A Space Within: Self as Landscape, Landscape as Self
March 10 - April 8, 2010
Paintings by Jim Condron
Review by Joren A. Lindholm

Post fed at: Bourgeon online on April 26, 2010.

Last month I headed up to the Cafritz Center at Montgomery College’s Takoma Park/Silver Spring campus to view the work of painter Jim Condron. Not knowing the campus and having never heard of the artist, landscape was all I had to go by. It doesn't take long to realize that there is a sea of ordinary landscape painting in the world and that’s how I envisioned this exhibition. As it turned out, however, Condron is no painting monkey. A Space Within: Self as Landscape, Landscape as Self was arresting for me as I recognized aspects of my own experience, startlingly reflected in the paintings of someone else.

Entering the space, I was greeted by many oil paintings, ranging from large to small, hung in several open-ended corridors threading throughout the large gallery space. These paintings are harmonious—direct and clear with a wise use of the elements. They unfold slowly with a sophistication of light and ambiance. Not every one was a winner, yet the smaller works were the show’s highlight. Framing images of gardens that could be the artist's backyard, they were quite moving in their ability to amplify quiet places and assert themselves center stage. Furthermore, the undeniable glow in their illumination, a result of his intelligently-mediated color and tone, reminded me of the sensation of arriving in a new country and taking in what I saw. The pieces depicting environments at night had an equally invigorating kind of light. Not bad for hues assigned to plants, soil, and trees. Could these subjects be the ones at or near his Baltimore home?

Several large canvases featured houses injected into the backyard image which he refers to as “structures” on his website (www.jcondron.com). In these works, Condron's mark seems to take the lead, commanding the surface geometry and employing more dynamics than the charmingly and uniformly limp hand he uses in his small canvases. The ambition with large-scale was nice to see, yet I was disappointed with how the architecture dispelled the transporting effect that the whole show had going for it, leaving those pictures relatively anomalous by their localization.

In the same gallery, there was an exhibition of optical-effect-driven sculpture and painting (mostly with thin stripes, as I recall) by Delaware artist Dennis Beach, titled “On and Off the Wall.” Those works were installed throughout the other end of the space (yes, the Cafritz Art Center was raised in the new millenium, so it is big) and amounted to a sobering glance and go, in stark contrast to Condron’s economy of means.

Next Exhibition - Curated Group Show

It was my pleasure one sunny Saturday afternoon last October to be introduced to quite a number of new faces amongst a DC art-going crowd. Just an hour before I had walked over to Nevin Kelly Gallery, at its then Columbia Heights location, to attend an artist talk for 'Dark Matter', an exhibition of DC artist Ellyn Weiss' most recent work. Before leaving I spoke at length with Thomas Drymon, who a few months later would organize, curate and promote the first in a series of group exhibitions to feature local DC artists. Before Thanksgiving, he gave me a call to ask me if I wanted to be a part of it. I said yes, and through the winter and into spring experienced working with him on very open-minded terms in planning my work selections for the successful group exhibit, 'Only What You Can Carry with You'.

Since premiering at Dupont Circle's Studio Gallery, Tom's venture and first exhibit featuring James Cassell, Peter E. Harper, myself and Zade Ramsey has gotten a great amount of coverage. Ellyn Weiss has written about it for her own blog (www.eweissart.com/index.php/News/) and for the Pink Line Project (www.pinklineproject.com); and the show was covered in the Friday art column of the Washington Post. There were hundreds of first-time viewers at the April 2nd Friday opening reception, which fueled profiles for each artist. Below are some photos of my work taken at the opening.





Tom selected four of my paintings, and eight collages for inclusion. The paintings represented my most recent work, which has bold color, starkly contrasting with the subdued appearances of the collages. Among the works on canvas was my most metaphorically layered piece to date, a two-panel, quasi-diptych developed throughout 2009 entitled 'The Traveler and the Travel'. Jessica Dawson, art critic for The Washington Post writes, "Lindholm's disjointed imagery really works. The panels (of the above mentioned) are united in some ways and not in others, mirroring the ambiguities of contemporary life."




Thomas Drymon is a freelance designer, painter and curator, currently based in Washington DC. Tom states that his aim is to showcase for the public work with a developmental and inquisitive nature, and made by artists who have had five years or more out of school. "Three exhibitions are planned each year at traditional and nontraditional spaces and are intended to introduce low to mid-priced works," he says. To learn more about his ideas and catch his second and third exhibitions for 2010, visit www.thomasdrymonselects.com. To access the original Style section coverage, go to the bottom of this Washington Post article.

Recent Work Nearing Completion

These are from a series of about 18 paintings covering 6 images.

study for ‘Stationary Girl No.2'

The subject of this image (in two versions) is an almost freakish kind of serenity,
with a woman who feels that she doesn't need any thing or to have any destination.

oil on paper, 21 x 15.5

‘Sad Nature' (unfinished)

oil on canvas, 16 x 20

study for ‘Stationary Girl No.1'

oil on paper, 14.5 x 11

‘Stationary Girl No.1 (nocturne)'

oil on canvas, 24 x 18

study for ‘The Traveler and The Travel' (which on canvas is a diptych)

This one makes me laugh, the way it came out. There's lots of ideas in there, yet it was mainly prompted by the notion of interpreting who a person is as a self versus who someone is as defined by what they are/are not doing (p/p/f). There is, at large, possibly an interchangeability of these two forms of identity (which are very contrasting in nature).

oil on board, 11 x 17.5

New York Exhibition entry selected by Sean Scully

This is a thumbnail of the piece that was a selected entry to the New York Studio School Alumni Show, 2009. The juror for that show was Sean Scully. I drove up to attend the mid-May opening reception. The attendance that night packed the whole house; it was fun. This piece, acrylic on paper from 2007, was acquired by Mike Zimberg of New York, New York.