Miguel Marcos Gallery is pleased to present Terrestrial, the third solo exhibition by the American artist Dennis Hollingsworth in Barcelona.

Terrestrial is both an creation and research in Art project articulated through the dialogue cosmos-painting; a dialogue mediated not only by the act of painting itself but also by the relationship generated between the artist and the elements involved in this exercise. The result is a dozen artworks carefully selected that make visible the thoughtful dialogue between the author and his work.

The cosmos, generally understood as the antithesis of chaos, is the starting point from which the artist reflects on the main elements that support his proposal. On one hand, the cosmos serves Hollingsworth to get closer to those “parts of the universe” contained in the pigments he uses for painting. On the other hand, to think about the cosmos invites him to rethink the position he occupies, as a painter, in the “world system”.

This shown interest in the material that gives the painting its particular meaning allows him to connect mind and body, space and time or the human being and the harmonious cosmic nature in which we are anchored and propelled by gravity. Thus, this exhibition is situated in the metaphorical gap between Heaven and Earth, to suggest a new approach to the painting’s language full of elements that refer to this symbolic fissure. The same fissure that is unified through the terrestrial neologism that entitles this project.

The way Hollingsworth embodies this language is a vibrant, rational and methodical painting organized in long paths of heavy oil that moves kindly along the canvas surface. Therefore the painting becomes the voluptuous and organic flesh that justifies the “terrestrial and celestial” character that takes the artwork. In this sense, these connections reveal the most intimate conversation between the artist and his creation that, contextualized in a space-time full of hedgehogs, mountains and reliefs, is in constant motion, transformation and, ultimately, terrestrial fluidity.

Dennis Hollingsworth was born by chance in Madrid in 1956. He was raised and educated in Los Angeles (California), where he studied Architecture. In the nineties he began his pictorial voyage under the new expressionism of the American West Coast. His artwork was acquired by the most prestigious museum of the city, the MOCA. Hollingsworth’s first solo exhibition in Spain was in Miguel Marcos Gallery with the show “Constellations” (2006). From that moment, he stood out for his unusual use of oil as low relief, his bright primary colours and the technique “alla prima” (without corrections or veils). “03:11H A VERY NICE 11H LIGHTNING STRIKE” was his second solo exhibition in Miguel Marcos Gallery, a project that, along with the current exhibition, immersed the artist in a universe full of cosmic micro-existences and kept the most representative elements of his painting. Since 2006, Hollingsworth shares his work on the blog http://www.dennishollingsworth.us, a space that he uses to give title and contextualize each painting taking into account the time he needs for each one.