Dana Holst Up, Up & Away 2026 oil on prepared paper 18 x 14 inches $2,400 unframed click to purchase
Dana Holst Sleepless Nights 2025 oil and encaustic on prepared paper 15 3/8 x 22 inches $1,250 unframed click to purchase
Dana Holst Study for Black Swan 2025 oil and encaustic on prepared paper 7.25 x 9.25 inches $750 framed click to purchase
Dana Holst The Forest 2024 oil on prepared paper 10 x 9 inches $675 framed click to purchase
Dana Holst Far & Away 2026 oil and encaustic on prepared paper 9 x 6.5 inches $375 unframed click to purchase
Exhibition Essay
Biography
Installation Views
The works in Dana Holst's exhibition Far & Away, bring together a collection of new, reworked and older drawings that travel through and reside in, a dark, ethereal state of mind. Holst has long worked in layers of black oil paint and smeared wax on her signature palest pink paper to create brooding, dreamlike revelations of social secrets, curtains of mystery she parts to expose our humanest of natures. In this exhibition, Black Swans emerge from obscurity, going in and out of foliage that bend and sway in Sleepless Nights. In Holst's latest work Up, Up & Away, a spectre of a girl gracefully rises against a wall of ivy, reminding us that a thing learned is a thing known and never forgotten.
Dana Holst’s work as a painter, drawer and printmaker investigates the world of humans and animals from a psychological perspective. Beginning with her personal collection of taxidermy, antiques and vernacular photographs, she weaves these elements into her fascination with old master techniques, creating ambiguous narratives about the current state of our human condition. Deeply mysterious, often bordering on darkness, Holst’s intuitive work peels back layers of emotion as she wields allurement and entrapment as her medium of choice.
Dana Holst (b.1972, Kitchener, Ontario) lives and works in Edmonton, Alberta and holds a B.A. in Fine Arts from the University of Waterloo. Holst runs a small alternative gallery and studio in Edmonton called dhARTworld, where she spends her time creating art, curating shows and mentoring local artists.
