Elisabeth Holzschuster mixes acrylic, ink, clay and pastel to create thickly textured abstract paintings that are both visually and physically lively. Though she uses geometry and visible, energized gestures to great effect in her compositions, Holzschuster’s primary tool is color. Her pure reds and yellows define the emotional narrative of each work: on one canvas, one tone softly cascades into the next; on another, colors violently clash, bringing hue, highlight, and deep shadow together to form a chiaroscuro tableau.
Holzschuster’s work remains insistently non-representational, even as her skill at matching color with shape suggests movement and weight. Unmistakably solid but without a real-world referent, the colors themselves take on personality and form. The artist herself has gone through many creative stages since her childhood in Austria. First a realist watercolor painter, then an abstract ceramicist, Holzschuster found her ultimate expression in combining two- and three-dimensional elements to suggest a physicality all her own. As she describes it: “Paintings are created when my fantasy melts with colors.”