American artist Frank Holliday used to be mentioned in the same breath as Keith Haring and Jean-Michele Basquiat because they were all part of New York’s East Village art scene in the 1980s.
Those two became legends after dying at such a young age (31 and 27) a decade later, but Holliday is still very much around at 58 years old.
He has been painting abstract landscapes since a breakthrough two-month trip to Australia a few years ago, where he found himself armed with only a hat and watercolour set, going to beaches and being confronted by nature.
“I’ve always tried to not brand myself for many years and that became a problem commercially,” the artist said in 2013 in a video interview with the blog Gorky’s Granddaughter.
The trip to Australia, he says, solved all his problems. Though he never thought of himself as a landscape painter, it quickly became his one and only subject.
This weekend he kicks off the “fall season” of Partners & Mucciaccia Singapore art gallery — and here we were thinking only fashion labels had seasons — with 41 large-scale works, measuring two metres by two metres, that represent an evolution of style and subject thirty years in the making.
Frank Holliday Solo Exhibition runs from Sep 12 to Dec 13 at Partners & Miucciaccia (Gillman Barracks, 6 Lock Rd, S108934; +65 66943777). Tue-Sat 11am-7pm, Sun 10am-8pm.
Photo: Purple Haze of Euphoria by Frank Holliday
