the one and only Camille Holvoet!

Camille Hovloet was born in San Francisco– “1952, June 30th, at St Mary’s Hospital across the street from the church. ” Her work centers on acute memories from her younger years, merged with the spontaneous desires and blissfully honest thoughts of the present. For the past thirty years, Holvoet has built a career at progressive art-making studios, Creativity Explored and Creative Growth, where she has developed a highly personal, complex, and uncensored body of work. In the studio, the pressures of the past are relieved by the joy of the creative process. In the artist's words, “drawing a picture and writing poetry on it and talking about it and screaming about it helps you feel more relaxed and get your frustration out. ” Her layered artmaking process begins with illustrations of memories, often followed by extended poems or texts exploring life’s anxieties and forbidden desires. Her uncanny recollections detail every place she had lived and often hone in on such details as the bathroom tiles' colors and designs. She paints people from memory whom she hasn’t seen in decades with charming characteristics. Using her art to both commemorate and process the past, Holvoet constantly revisits depictions of past homes, the people who lived there, nearby churches, and things that bring her joy. Visual motifs such as cakes, Ferris wheels, and merry-go-rounds echo throughout her work, all tied to anecdotes that were formative to the artist early in life. These subjects, often composed in various combinations, all serve as a vehicle for investigating Holvoet’s dreams, desires, frustrations, and memories, over, and over again– circling like the rides she depicts. Camille Holovet has been a studio artist at Creativity Explored for twenty-four years and has participated in over ninety exhibitions nationally and internationally, including Ireland, Japan, and the UK. Holvoet has presented multiple solo exhibitions, including White Columns Gallery (New York), Jack Fischer Gallery (San Francisco), and at the Creavity Explored Gallery. Her work can be found in the permanent collection of the SFMoMA and the Oakland Museum of CA, and in 2024, Holvoet was a finalist for the prestigious SFMoMA SECA Award.