Artist Bryan Holland creates intriguing paintings and collage works by juxtaposing styles from various eras. Many of his works have a retro quality that reminds one of the bygone days of billboard painting as an art form. Glossy images of apples, lipstick and other products that seem practically interchangeable hearken back to the days of Mad Men-era advertising. In other works, Holland depicts wild animals in staged-looking poses, reminiscent of the kind of tableaux one might find at a natural history museum. These depictions of ossified or at least domesticated-looking animals are set against faded text and backgrounds that could be inspired by vintage wallpaper designs, calling to mind old-timey circus posters. Meanwhile, the costumes and poses of Holland’s various human subjects often refer back to 15th-century Flemish portraiture. Taken as a whole or viewed individually, Holland’s work creates a dense tapestry of cultural associations that reveal a deep interest in commercial art of both the past and present.
