In the artist’s celebrated Eraserhead drawings, Holstad selectively erases sections of images cut from newspapers and magazines, altering meaning in ways that hint at subtextual layers through the image.

He creates the works through a process that involves clipping images from newspapers and first rubbing areas out, leaving in their place blank, haunting suggestions of forms. To these Holstad adds drawn elements, poetically emphasising or dramatising human features both imagined and real. His technique destabilises our experience of media imagery, transforming everyday pictures into insightful and highly personal commentaries which are at times somber, at times celebratory. It is a process the artist has referred to as ‘drawing backwards’, he explains: ‘Erasing teaches you how shadow actually functions in an image: when you take it away you actually see what it does to an image. It’s a very intuitive process.’

Christian Holstad was born in Anaheim, California, in 1972 and lives and works in New York City. Recent solo exhibitions include Consider Yourself As A Guest (Cornucopia) staged at Artissima, Torino (2020) and Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (2019). The artist has participated in recent institutional group exhibitions including: Transitions and Transformations, NSU Art Museum, Fort Lauderdale (2019–2021); OnSite; A semi-permanent installation, Swiss Institute, New York (2018–ongoing);  A Cool Breeze, Galerie Rudolfinum, Prague (2019); About a Vase, Fondazione Museo Montelupo Onlus, Montelupo Fiorentino (2018); Still Human, Rubell Museum, Miami, Florida (2017–2018); C.O.P., works from the de la Cruz collection, Nova Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale (2017).

His work is in the permanent collections of institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Astrup Fearnley Museet for Moderne Kunst, Oslo; Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche, Faenza.