Holmead and "Crude Expressionism"

Art and music needs no language. Once you delve into them, they speak to you in their own way. Personally, I feel every artist has a story to tell.  I don't know much about art, but I admire the story behind every piece of art.

So when I found myself today at a Clifford Holmead Philips art show at Ahrensburg, I was mesmerized by this expressionist's strokes of brush. The young Phillips was born in 1889 and apprenticed in his father's furniture factory in his late teens. His life took a sudden turn when he accidentally ran over a chicken in 1912. German art collector Alfred Moeke, who helped organize the exhibition of Phillips' paintings at Shippensburg University's Kauffman Gallery, says Phillips vowed never again to eat meat or own an automobile. He sold his auto and bought an ocean-liner ticket.

During a six-month journey around Europe, he spent much of his time in art museums and determined to become a painter.

Even though his earlier work was influenced by European expressionism and mostly related to Bibilical myths, it was his later work on capturing human facial expressions that fascinated me the most.

They were dark, cynical and rough. Also I learned for the first time what shorthand painting was all about.

The strokes are harsh, raw, and stark with emotions. The way he consumes the canvas with color and palette knife is simply savage, and very primal. The untamed, and unconventional style reminds me that life force should never be controlled. When the painter paints or the poet composes or the musician plays or the dancer dances, these are all expressions of your life force. Not only are children born out of your sexual energy, but everything that man has created on the earth has come out of sexual energy. And Holmead's works are full of life energy. He said, 'No I am not satisfied with painting a photographic image. Art is more than that.'"