Holly Greenwood, Vegas, 2023. Oil on board, framed, 122 x 162cm. Courtesy: the artist and Olsen Gallery, Sydney.

“I’ve always painted pubs, and the ebb and flow of people coming and going – not talking necessarily – but feeling another’s presence,” says Sydney-based Holly Greenwood. This proclivity sees the artist make gouache studies from life, while stationed at suitable vantage points in her preferred local and regional establishments. The brief sketches that she obtains there are reimagined in her inner-city studio, where Greenwood treats oil and board with equal brevity and confidence. She pursues a kind of shorthand, “that expresses this way that we connect to each other.”

Greenwood has achieved great success in recent years, having been named a finalist in the Sir John Sulman Prize (2022), The Portia Geach Memorial Prize (2021), and the Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship (2018, 2017). In 2019, she was awarded the Hill End Residency.

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