“At the edge of the land, and the start of the sea. In a space between worlds, at a time between years, in a life between lives. I’m lost, but here, at least for a moment, I’m found.” - Raynor Winn
The works of Ellis Holman (1995, NL), entitled Composed Oceanscapes, play with tensions and distorted perspectives, revealing the complex relationship between our past and our future, and the feeling of drifting between the two. There, in the sea where your feet can no longer touch the ground, you detach yourself from the land and feel alienated in the space between the deep, unknown waters stretching out before you and the familiar land you leave behind. In a time when polarization, digitization, individualization, and social pressure constantly pull at us, the desire to disappear for a moment, to fall silent in that elusive space in between, grows. With her works, Holman creates space for the desire to linger at that moment when everything comes to a standstill, when a rough sea becomes serene. She tries to capture that space in her own surreal world. The result is the series Composed Ocean Scapes, where you can determine the laws of gravity yourself in each piece. In her work, she explores the urge for control, fantasy, desire, silence, the sublime, and surrender. But what if you reach that place you so longed for?
Is it the ultimate escape, or does it only exist in our imagination? No matter how persistent we are in our attempts, it cannot be shaped or grasped. And the past and future will continue to push and pull like the tides of the ocean.
Ellis Holman is a visual artist whose work moves between landscape, identity, and the sensory experience of space. After graduating from the Willem de Kooning Academy (2022), she was selected for Best of Graduates at Galerie Ron Mandos and presented her work at Art Rotterdam. Her art has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including at MOYA, Brutus, and the Chroniques Biennale in Aix-en-Provence. In 2024, she was artist-in-residence at the Forci Art Foundation in Italy. Her work is part of collections such as the Van Vlissingen Art Foundation, Number 5 Foundation, and the Lakeside Collection. Holman has received various grants from the Mondriaan Fund and Het Cultuurfonds and was runner-up for the Van Vlissingen Art Foundation Prize.