A Way of Feeling

On January 2nd, Hollis Taggart Southport will open A Way of Feeling, a three-person exhibition featuring new and recent paintings by contemporary artists Thomas Agrinier, Hollis Heichemer, and Anna Pietrzak. The exhibition highlights Agrinier, Heichemer, and Pietrzak’s distinct explorations of the Romantic tradition by emphasizing an appreciation of nature, imagination, emotion, and transcendent experiences. Curated by Paul Efstathiou, Director of Contemporary, the exhibition will open in our Southport, CT location (330 Pequot Avenue) and will be on view through February 6th. An opening reception will take place on January 2nd, 5pm-8pm. Masks will be required and all COVID protocols will be followed. 

Working with gold leaf and acrylic on wood panel and canvas, Anna Pietrzak creates compositions inspired by the human body and nature in which forms lean against each other, held in striking tension. While Pietrzak's forms are reductive, their arrangements and shimmering surfaces are monumental and emotive, evoking the history of the sublime. Thomas Agrinier's paintings feature dramatic conflicts between several protagonists, highlighting the complexities of human relationships. The mysterious and unsettling narratives are told through dynamic poses and gestures, with natural scenery used to heighten the intensity. Contemplative and intuitive, Heichemer's gestural landscape paintings capture her personal experiences of nature. Finding inspiration in quiet moments in the woods around her New Hampshire studio, she memorializes and transforms them into poetic abstractions.

"We are thrilled to present a diverse collection of works by three contemporary practitioners who are based in New Hampshire, New York City and Paris, France to our Fairfield County community," said Paul Efstathiou. "Their bold and beautiful compositions exemplify the artistic practices of today, and together spark a powerful dialogue on Romanticism."

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Thomas Agrinier was born in 1976 in Lyon, France and lives and works in Paris. His solo exhibitions include Mark Hachem, Paris, Galerie Estace, Paris, and Galerie Dukan, Paris. He has also exhibited at BLAM Projects, Los Angeles, Ostrale Biennial for Contemporary Art Dresden, Scope Basel with Galerie Estace, and at Art Paris Art Fair with Mark Hachem.

Hollis Heichemer, a gallery artist, has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Gross McCleaf Gallery and Rosenfeld Gallery in Philadelphia, J. Cacciola Gallery in New York, and most recently in 2019 at Hollis Taggart in her exhibition Happenstance. She has participated in a wide range of group exhibitions, in-cluding Stay Inspired currently at Dolby Chadwick Gallery in San Francisco. Born in Binghamton, New York and currently living and working in New Hampshire, she received her BS from Ohio University and her MA from Seton Hall University. 

Anna Pietrzak A first-generation Polish-American, Anna Pietrzak grew up in Indiana and received a MA in Architecture from the University of Cincinnati. Her work has been featured in group exhibitions at Trotter & Sholer Gallery, New York City, In Passing Gallery, New York City, and ZH Projects, New York City and at the Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair, London. Her solo exhibition Before Shadows opened at The Place gallery in Dumbo, Brooklyn in March 2020.

For more information about A Way of Feeling or to schedule an appointment, please contact us at info@hollistaggart.com or +1 212.628.4000.