‘Waterfall’ is part of Cindi Holt: A Lyrical Dance at Valley House Gallery.
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| Cindi Holt: A Lyrical Dance — Paintings and Drawings is up Aug 27-Oct 1 at Valley House Gallery, 6616 Spring Valley Rd, Dallas. Admission is free. Call 972-239-2441 |
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A D V E R T I S E M E N T
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A D V E R T I S E M E N T
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Holt the Cheese, Please
Sometimes the only thing that separates a maudlin painting from a cutting-edge painting is where it hangs. In a cooler-than-cool modern museum? Totally cutting-edge. In a gallery whose logo is a unicorn? Eh, not so much.
Technically, Cindi Holt’s paintings are excellent. In the spirit of Van Gogh, the Fort Worth artist has the uncanny ability to flatten three-dimensional, mostly naturalist imagery into simple, bold tableaux. She also regularly employs brilliant, organic colors that, coupled with her hyper-flat draftsmanship, chase shadows (and secrets) away. Her work wouldn’t look out of place hanging in the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.
Too bad Holt doesn’t approach her career as an artist but merely as an interior designer who paints really well. She’s painted two Christmas cards for Dubya — in 1998, when he was gov’ner of Texas and, last year, during his presidency — and she’s now exhibiting her work in a gallery whose logo is, yes, a unicorn. Cindi Holt: A Lyrical Dance — Paintings and Drawings, a collection of Holt’s painterly riffs on the Fort Worth Botanic Garden and various Fort Worth homes, hangs at Valley House Gallery until Oct 1.
Sure, the artist doesn’t do herself any favors by constantly mining the idylls of upper-crust society for inspiration (some of her favorite motifs are opulent houses and their interiors — and frickin’ cats). But as her celebrations of the land o’ plenty would come off as smart satire in a place like the Modern, they’re pretty nauseating in most other settings.
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