CHERYL HOLZ

Cheryl Holz

Born in the country in Chicago, artist Cheryl Holz began expressing her artistic talent at age 2 by drawing on the walls of her home. She roamed the woods and fields as a child collecting moss, bugs, leaves, and to her mother’s chagrin, snakes and salamanders. She took art classes while in grade school in a rustic cabin in the woods, drawing the surroundings, and sometimes taking her sketchbook outside and drawing the animals at the neighboring farm. She collected all kinds of things, including butterfly wings, leaves, eggshells, kelp, labels, and stamps. These collections have found their place in Cheryl’s work.

That early fascination with nature has led her to investigate natural forms as well as human designs and marks; the connections between nature’s patterns and those in our own lives continue to fascinate her and invigorate her art. She hopes that her choice of materials and topics makes the viewer consider their natural surroundings a bit more.

The symbolic implications of the methods and materials she uses in her work are as important as the concepts and forms. She might build up and then wear away a surface, exposing underlying images, or she might accrete images in layers. As the layers accumulate or disintegrate, erosion and deterioration mark them just as weather and time mark nature.

Cheryl’s love for art is a fabulous way for her to learn and investigate anything and everything she’s interested in, from consciousness to environmental balance. She makes it the subject of her work, and immerses herself in it. She loves that there are a million "correct" solutions. She knows that there is always more to learn, techniques to master, and goals to break, and it is so satisfying when it’s working, she can not imagine living without it. She attends an artist colony every year, where she is secluded from the distractions of everyday life, and allowed time and space to work; these large periods of uninterrupted time allows her to focus and create at an unprecedented rate.

Spontaneity is integral to her work; in joining the free and spontaneous to the thought and rational, she seeks a sensuous surface that also offers meaning that satisfies intellectually, as well as aesthetically.

Cheryl earned her BSAE and MFA at Northern Illinois University. She has participated in numerous exhibitions, including Illinois Women Artist, the New Millennium, Three Rivers Arts Festival, and Women’s Works Annual Exhibitions. She has received many awards, including Artistic Fusion 2000 Jurors Award, Women’s Works 10th Annual Exhibition Judges Award, and Three Rivers Arts Festival Purchase Award. Cheryl shares her love of art by teaching after school art programs for four elementary schools in Illinois, and she initiated a cooperative supplemental art program for two different school districts.