Loie Hollowell: Dilation Stage
Loie Hollowell: Dilation Stage 540 West 25th Street, New York, NY 10001March 8–April 20, 2024 Photography courtesy Pace Gallery
New York – Pace is pleased to present Dilation Stage, an exhibition of new large-scale drawings by Loie Hollowell, at its 540 West 25th Street gallery in New York, which opened on March 8 and will be on view until April 20. This presentation marks Hollowell’s second solo show with Pace in New York and her first exhibition in the city dedicated exclusively to her works on paper. Dilation Stage will coincide with her first museum survey, on view at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut, through August 11.
Nine Centimeters Dilated, September 21, 2023 WORK ON PAPER soft pastel on paper 26" × 30" (66 cm × 76.2 cm) framed, 29-15/16" × 33- 15/16" (76 cm × 86.2 cm) No. 89269 © Loie Hollowell, courtesy Pace Gallery
Hollowell is known for her otherworldly paintings and drawings of bodily landscapes. Through a unique lexicon of geometric and organic forms that represent elements of her body, the artist explores experiences of sex, pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, and motherhood. Manipulating real and illusory space on the canvas, she uses radiant colors, varied textures, and protruding sculptural elements to draw viewers into her energetic compositions.
Loie Hollowell: Dilation Stage 540 West 25th Street, New York, NY 10001March 8–April 20, 2024 Photography courtesy Pace Gallery
In her show with Pace in New York, Hollowell presents ten new pastel drawings that document the dilation stage of labor, in which the cervix opens and effaces from one to ten centimeters, allowing the baby to move into the birth canal. Displayed sequentially on a rounded wall that reflects the shape of a pregnant belly, these drawings feature, at their centers, depictions of Hollowell’s own pregnant abdomen, rendered to scale. Below each belly is a circle the exact size of the effaced cervix as it expands. Meanwhile, radiating bands of color—which represent the increasingly intense pain of contractions during the dilation stage—fill the spaces around the bellies. In each composition, these rippling colors respond to the hue of the swollen wombs from which they emanate— Hollowell assigns light colors to minimally painful contractions, while intensely painful contractions take on dark colors. The cervical “circles” at the bottom of each drawing seem to pulse as the series progresses, culminating in a blazing cadmium red.
Four Centimeters Dilated, March 22, 2023 WORK ON PAPER soft pastel on paper 26"×28"(66cm×71.1cm) framed, 29-15/16" × 33- 15/16" (76 cm × 86.2 cm) No. 87553 © Loie Hollowell, courtesy Pace Gallery
For this body of work, in which color is a highly charged force, Hollowell adopts a wide ranging palette to express the mental and physical sensations she has experienced while giving birth. “When the first contractions started with each of my pregnancies, I was filled with joy and excitement that I would soon be meeting my baby,” Hollowell says. “I rendered this stage in yellow, like the sun on a cloudless day, full of light and optimism. As my cervix dilated, the pain became increasingly intense and sharp, so I moved into bright, deep reds for that stage. My second birth was at home in a birthing tub—I was enveloped in buoyant, luke-warm water while also having this searing and heavy pain. I felt only an ultramarine blue could rightfully signify that experience.”
Two Centimeters Dilated, March 10, 2023 WORK ON PAPER soft pastel on paper 26"×30"(66cm×76.2cm) framed, 29-15/16" × 33- 15/16" (76 cm × 86.2 cm) No. 87551 © Loie Hollowell, courtesy Pace Gallery
In addition to these drawings, the exhibition includes a unique birthing bench that Hollowell created collaboratively with her husband, sculptor Brian Caverly. The history of the birthing chair—which has been used by women in labor throughout millennia—extends all the way back to 1450 BCE Egypt. In Caverly and Hollowell’s rendition, which visitors are invited to sit on, space is created not just for the birther, but also for the partner, midwife, doula, doctor, or any other witness to the transcendent journey of birth.
Later this year, Pace will present an exhibition of new paintings by Hollowell at its Los Angeles gallery. Details about this presentation will be announced in due course.
Loie Hollowell (b. 1983, raised in Woodland, CA) is recognized for her paintings that evoke bodily landscapes, using geometric shapes to move a figure or its actions into abstraction. Her work explores themes of sexuality, often through allusions to the human form with an emphasis on women’s bodies. An investigation of autobiography became evident in Hollowell’s early work, which explored the use of gradient staining techniques on cotton supports as a metaphor for intimate spaces—meditations on sleep and bodily fluids. These canvases evolved into figurative painting, introducing female nudes as subject matter as well as the use of reflection and mirroring. Her subsequent work exhibited a shift toward abstraction, characterized by radiating silhouettes and a pulsating color palette. With its strong colors, varied textures, and geometrical symmetry, Hollowell’s practice is situated in lineage with the work of the Transcendental Painting Group (1938–41), Georgia O’Keeffe, Gulam Rasool Santosh, and Judy Chicago.
Pace is a leading international art gallery representing some of the most influential contemporary artists and estates from the past century, holding decades-long relationships with Alexander Calder, Jean Dubuffet, Barbara Hepworth, Agnes Martin, Louise Nevelson, and Mark Rothko. Pace enjoys a unique U.S. heritage spanning East and West coasts through its early support of artists central to the Abstract Expressionist and Light and Space movements.
Since its founding by Arne Glimcher in 1960, Pace has developed a distinguished legacy as an artist-first gallery that mounts seminal historical and contemporary exhibitions. Under the current leadership of CEO Marc Glimcher, Pace continues to support its artists and share their visionary work with audiences worldwide by remaining at the forefront of innovation. Now in its seventh decade, the gallery advances its mission through a robust global program— comprising exhibitions, artist projects, public installations, institutional collaborations, performances, and interdisciplinary projects. Pace has a legacy in art bookmaking and has published over five hundred titles in close collaboration with artists, with a focus on original scholarship and on introducing new voices to the art historical canon.
Today, Pace has seven locations worldwide, including European footholds in London and Geneva as well as Berlin, where the gallery established an office in 2023. Pace maintains two galleries in New York—its headquarters at 540 West 25th Street, which welcomed almost 120,000 visitors and programmed 20 shows in its first six months, and an adjacent 8,000 sq. ft. exhibition space at 510 West 25th Street. Pace’s long and pioneering history in California includes a gallery in Palo Alto, which was open from 2016 to 2022. Pace’s engagement with Silicon Valley’s technology industry has had a lasting impact on the gallery at a global level, accelerating its initiatives connecting art and technology as well as its work with experiential artists. Pace consolidated its West Coast activity through its flagship in Los Angeles, which opened in 2022. Pace was one of the first international galleries to establish outposts in Asia, where it operates permanent gallery spaces in Hong Kong and Seoul, along with an office and viewing room in Beijing. In spring 2024, Pace will open its first gallery space in Japan in Tokyo’s new Azabudai Hills development.
For more information about this exhibition and others, please visit the Pace Gallery’s website here. Pace Gallery can be found on Instagram and Artsy, too.
