Loie Hollowell: Tick Tock Belly Clock @ Manetti Shrem Museum, Davis

“It starts with trying… to make these sexual graphic cartoony sketches in my notebook, then abstracting that and making it more geometric, more abstract,” Loie Hollowell told Juxtapoz a few years ago. “I don’t know, I’m not an art historian, and I can’t give a long description of what the history of abstraction is, but for me, these works are portraits of certain experiences.” That is a revealing explanation from the artist, that even in these paintings that she finalizes, the body parts and sexuality aren’t some sort of Magic Eye scenario. These shapes become more and more clear that there is something physical, almost direct in their representation.