Holly Tempo Featured Artist at Inglewood Library for September 2010!

HOLLY TEMPO

Holly Tempo, who received an MFA from the Claremont Graduate University, is known for her labor-intensive paintings and site-specific works. Tempo’s work is informed by an ongoing exploration of the semiotics of color, decoration and pattern and an engagement with both macro and micro systems in nature and society.  Ambitious in scope and execution and whimsical in tone, the work interrogates the state of being of the individual as well as the group and often presents the viewer with subtle interventions.  Recent monumental works by the artist include The Anti-war Macassar, a large floor piece crafted entirely of acrylic paint, and Chasing Arrows at Las Orchièdas, a site-specific work in the Panamanian rain forest.

With an active professional career, the artist has shown her work extensively at exhibition spaces in Southern California, including POST, Miller/Durazo Fine Art, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, Angels Ink Gallery, Track 16 Gallery, the Leo S. Bing Center at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, At The Brewery Project, Ruth Bachofner Gallery, Frumkin/Duval Gallery, Kohn Turner Gallery, the Huntington Beach Art Center, and the San Bernardino County Museum of Art.  Tempo has also exhibited internationally in India, Spain, Great Britain, France, Israel and Central America. 

Tempo joined the faculty of the School of Fine Arts at Otis College of Art & Design in 2001, where she serves as Associate Professor of Painting. The artist, born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, maintains a studio in Inglewood, California.

DIATOM PAINTINGS

These paintings explore the relationship between nature, labor and aesthetic intervention.  The imagery is based on diatoms, a type of alga.   Diatom skeletons form fossil deposits which, when viewed under a microscope, resemble doilies. 

In this case, I used actual doilies as templates to replicate the skeletons of micro-organisms.  Each form was handmade with acrylic gel medium and pigment.  I used a pastry tube to create the “doilies” and glued them to the canvases.  

The resulting paintings become repositories for these enigmatic forms that hover in pictorial limbo.   They vacillate between being organic super structures and signifiers of hyper-culture.

Holly Tempo is a member of the Inglewood Open Studios Tour. 

Each year she supports her community 
by opening her studio to the public 
to witness her artistic process, 
learn more about the arts and 
encourages other artists to do the same. 
This year's Inglewood Open Studios Tour 
is scheduled Saturday and Sunday
 November 13th and 14th, 2010.

Look for announcements about the tour here at 

http://finearttrekkinInglewood.blogspot.com

http://inglewoodopenstudios.blogspot.com

The Inglewood Public Library Supports Inglewood Artists 

and features one artist per month to represent

 their art and their community. Reading is the key to understanding our world. 

Art nurtures the artist as well as the community 

and the sense of achievement that is obtained 

from both reading about art and creating artworks

 that are appreciated by your peers is both fulfilling and  

vital to the development of our youth in our culture. 

Visit the Inglewood Public Library more often. 

Get involved with your children, 

and children teach your parents what you know. 

We all feed each other. 

There is a thirst and a hunger for knowledge 

which makes us better human beings 

to our families and our world. 

It all begins with a visit to your local library, 

open a book, open your eyes to the artwork around you 

and enjoy your journey!

Inglewood Public Library, 2010. 
Photo by Ginger Van Hook