Leslie Holt DON’T LET THE SUN GO DOWN
Well known for paintings that encourage dialogue with topics of psychology, grief, and triumph, Leslie Holt’s newest body of work in DON’T LET THE SUN GO DOWN furthers her exploration of the visualization of mental health conditions through color and language.
Of her work Holt says, “My interest is in this combination of objective data with more poetic interpretation as a reflection of both corporeal and clinical experiences of mental health conditions. In some of this work, the brain imagery itself is abstracted beyond recognition, presenting a more subjective view of the brain.”
Holt’s compositions on raw canvas contain clouds of sharp acrylic pigment that bleed, drip, and pool around embroidered brains and text. Culling imagery and text from scientific, historical, and personal references, she explores the visualization of mental health and the history of its treatment.
Holt’s Brain Stain series exploits the aesthetic qualities of scans of healthy brains and those affected by mental illness. Measuring changes associated with blood flow, PET scans reveal compelling differences in presence, absence, and proportion of certain hues. These hues are often attributed to specific emotions associated with mental conditions - someone experiencing depression may “feel blue” because decreased brain activity presents a visual image with more blue, green, and black than a healthy brain.
While the source imagery varies, the medium of all the work includes acrylic paint stains combined with embroidery thread stitched on raw canvas. In much of this work I include text sourced from contemporary and historical clinical language, poetry and my own writing. I often stitch on both sides of the canvas so that what shows up on front can become a garbled code of thread: illegible, but with some unknown system guiding its construction.
Holt’s Hysterical Women series includes source material from the 19th century - clinical sketches of institutionalized women, most of whom were diagnosed with hysteria. Clinicians drew, sculpted and photographed these women, often putting them on display for the public, portraying them with exaggerated and often sexualized gestures and poses. The women are suspended and isolated in other-worldly spaces, distant from their original context, stains of saturated acrylic paint hovering over them.
Leslie Holt is from Bethesda, Maryland, and in 2012 she returned to the DC area after living in St. Louis. She received a BFA in Painting at Washington University in St. Louis and an MFA in Painting at Washington State University in Pullman, WA. Holt has taught studio art, art history, and art appreciation at the collegiate level for over 20 years, and has also worked as a social worker and advocate for people with developmental disabilities, mental illness, and those receiving welfare benefits. She is the Co-Director of Red Dirt Studio, a warehouse studio for a group of independent artists and creative professionals. In 2021 she presented NEURO BLOOMS at Beautiful Distress House and the Mentrum Mental Health Center in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and was included in the Phillips Collection’s INSIDE OUTSIDE, UPSIDE DOWN, an exhibition celebrating the Collection’s 100th anniversary and founder Duncan Phillips’ commitment to presenting, acquiring, and promoting artists in the D.C. region.
DAVID LUSK GALLERY memphis | nashville davidluskgallery.com