The Work

Two sculptural orbs arranged vertically, convex protruding inch from canvas or concave sinking inch into it, with concentric ripples intersecting to create a horizontal mandorla between them. Pulsating colours describe throbbing bodily motion: reds, yellows, blues against muted tonalities of mauvy, greyish, fleshy purples register moments of sharp human pain and euphoria within an infinite weightless cosmic ocean. Named after astronauts' term for seeing Earth from space and the transcendental feelings it produces. Captures sensations of second childbirth at home in birthing tub, moments between contractions where Hollowell observed herself from outside body, as if from above. Orbs recall a pregnant and empty belly, planetary systems in synchronised orbit, functioning as nesting dolls, affirming the inherent unity of mother and child.

Artist Position

ESTABLISHED MID-CAREER. Born in California in 1983. Decade-long exploration of bodily landscape through geometric compositions, mandorla, ogee, lingam, alongside colour gradations. Autobiographical practice distils physical and psychic changes through pregnancy, birth, and breastfeeding. Work held in the Long Museum Shanghai, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Hirshhorn Museum, LACMA, and ICA Miami. First retrospective "Loie Hollowell: Space Between" Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Connecticut (2024), travelled to ICA, Virginia Commonwealth University (2025). Current solo Pace London (through May 2026). Joined Pace Gallery in 2017, first Hong Kong solo in 2018.

Market Intelligence

Auction record USD2.1 million "Linked Lingams (yellow, green, blue, purple, pink)" Sotheby's Hong Kong 2021. Strong Asian market momentum, majority of six-figure results from Hong Kong auctions 2021-2023. Recent US auction record USD1.05 million Clars Oakland 2022. Primary market prices reached USD250,000 by 2019. Overview Effect series debuted at Pace Los Angeles 2024 at the largest scale to date. London presentation returns to human-scale at 6×4.5 feet, allowing greater colour complexity.

Collection Rationale

Strategic acquisition from a painter operating at the intersection of geometric abstraction and autobiographical bodily experience during critical evolution from Split Orb (hospital birth) to Overview Effect (home birth) series. Demonstrates a rare combination of institutional validation (first museum survey 2024) and robust secondary market performance. Complements collections focused on contemporary women artists, geometric abstraction with feminist dimensions, or California painters. Natural adjacency to collectors holding Hilma af Klint, Emma Kunz, and Mary Heilmann. London timing favourable, first UK solo since 2018 signals European market expansion beyond established Asian collector base. Work uniquely positions sensual corporeal experience within cosmic/spiritual frameworks through formal precision.

The Work

Still life marked Hockney's return to painting after a period exploring experimental techniques and theatrical designs in the 1980s. Two vases arranged on white ground reveal the influence of Picasso's Cubist still lifes, Van Gogh's vibrant palette, and Cézanne's Platonic compositional forms. Fascination with still life takes many forms throughout a career, often reflecting simultaneous immersion in other genres and methods. Characteristic bold colour and flattened perspective compress spatial depth while maintaining decorative exuberance.

Artist Position

BLUE-CHIP ESTABLISHED. Born in Bradford, UK, 1937. Royal College of Art, London, alongside R.B. Kitaj. Studied under Francis Bacon and Peter Blake. Most influential British artist 20th/21st centuries. Work held MoMA NY, Tate Britain, Royal Academy of Arts London, Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam, Art Institute Chicago, and LACMA. Known for California swimming pools, Yorkshire landscapes, double portraits exploring queer desire, photographic collages, iPad drawings, and opera stagings. Major retrospectives Tate Britain (2017), Fondation Louis Vuitton (2025), Centre Pompidou Paris, Metropolitan Museum, NY.

Market Intelligence

Auction record USD90.3 million "Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)" Christie's NY 2018, highest price for a living artist at the time. Recent major sales: USD44.3 million "Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy" Christie's 2025, USD28.6 million "The Splash" Sotheby's 2020. Still-life paintings are less sought after than iconic pool/landscape works but represent important transitional moments between major bodies of work. Strong institutional bidding, consistent blue-chip secondary market across all periods.

Collection Rationale

Strategic acquisition of transitional still life from the most commercially successful British artist of our time during the pivotal 1988 return to painting. The work demonstrates Hockney's engagement with the art historical canon, Picasso, Cézanne, Van Gogh, through a contemporary lens. Complements collections focused on Pop Art, British painting, or works bridging modernist traditions with contemporary practice. Natural adjacency to collectors holding Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and Gerhard Richter. Timing is favourable as Hockney approaches 90th year, with institutional retrospectives continuing globally, and sustained critical attention ensures market stability.

The Work

Electrocuted biomorphism descended from Surrealism; incandescent amoebas, skittering deep-sea/outer-space/inner-voyage paramecia, flagella, Ernst Haeckel's world pumped up with unreal colours. Even pastels are harsh, bright. Nervous line recrudescences recall Philip Guston's forlorn shoes; abstractions have textures of anxiety. Not specifically referential, though references present: Miró and Masson to Twombly, Basquiat, and Jonathan Lasker. Life's been polluted by morph. Strange connection to Guston's nervous energy channelled through the contemporary lens of electrified colour and visceral mark-making.

Artist Position

MID-CAREER. Born in NYC in 1983, lives in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Educated at Trevor Day School, Brown University. Known for abstract work exploring creation and destruction. Recent exhibitions: James Fuentes, NY, and Almine Rech. Work featured major group presentations alongside established contemporary painters.

Market Intelligence

Auction record USD277,200 "No. 8" Christie's NY 2022. Range USD2,937-277,200. Active secondary market with growing institutional recognition. Strong Christie's and Sotheby's presence 2020-2025, indicating blue-chip auction house confidence. Recent results consistently exceeding estimates, suggesting collector demand outpacing supply. Works from the 2018-2021 period, achieving the strongest prices.

Collection Rationale

Strategic acquisition from a painter operating at the intersection of Surrealist biomorphism and contemporary gestural abstraction. Hyrule represents the prime period of formal development, combining electrified colour with visceral mark-making. Complements collections focused on contemporary abstract painting, works referencing Surrealist traditions, or New York-based painters. Natural adjacency to collectors holding works by Amy Sillman, Charline von Heyl, and Julie Mehretu. Large scale (188×218cm) commands presence while remaining accessible for residential collections. Timing is favourable as secondary market momentum builds with consistent auction presence across major houses. Work uniquely channels mid-century abstract expressionist energy through contemporary sensibility of polluted beauty and nervous vitality.

The Work

Geometric curves, angled planes, profiles assembled from minimal cues, eyes rendered as discrete yet confrontational elements. Pared-back forms evoke feminized body without depicting it, highlighting how we create meaning from limited visual cues. Bodies are shaped as much by what we notice as what we overlook. Continues investigation into how bodies are constructed, perceived, and experienced, encouraging sustained looking and movement around sculptural forms. Meaning emerges through collaboration among object, space, and viewer, not passive objects awaiting a single interpretation, but structures embodying new ways of seeing that honour multiplicity and transform understanding of what it means to truly see.

Artist Position

ESTABLISHED. Born in the Netherlands in 1979, emigrated to New Zealand in 1983, and to Australia in 1998. PhD Fine Art, RMIT 2008, Graduate Certificate in Public Art, RMIT 2011. Senior Lecturer, Sculpture, Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney. Work held National Gallery of Australia, MCA Australia. Winner Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize (2019), John Fries Memorial Prize (2011). Recent commission "The Whole is Greater than the Sum of Her Parts" NGA Canberra (2025)—interactive installation responding to Picasso's Cubist fragmentation for "Cézanne to Giacometti" exhibition. Major public commissions include Lake Macquarie, Geelong City Council, Westbourne Grammar, and Monash University.

Market Intelligence

Minimal secondary market. Exclusively primary through Sullivan+Strumpf Sydney/Melbourne. Recent institutional momentum through the NGA commission critiquing the male gaze's fragmentation of the female body via participatory feminist practice. Growing recognition for reworking modernist visual languages, appropriated Frank Stella and Ad Reinhardt's Black Paintings as handwoven tapestries with the mother and guild of craftswomen (2015, 2018).

Collection Rationale

Strategic acquisition from a conceptual sculptor interrogating modernism's treatment of the female body through appropriation and disruption. Complements collections focused on feminist contemporary practice, Australian conceptual art, or works that engage with the modernist legacy. Natural adjacency to collectors holding Louise Bourgeois, Rosemarie Trockel, and Carol Bove. Bronze edition structure (edition 3 plus 2 AP) balances accessibility with exclusivity. Timing is favourable as institutional validation through the NGA commission elevates the profile beyond the Australian market.