Out of Towner
Kev Von Holt
by Matt Duke
In
I felt the need to skip town. I wanted to explore,
get lost, hangout. I found myself in Philadelphia, PA, a
city I knew very little about. Aside from the phone number of a pretty girl, I didn’t have much of a reason to
choose Philly. It just happened. I quickly became an explorer and walked the grid daily. I wanted to find and see
everything this new place had to offer.
I don’t remember the first time I met Kev Von Holt, but I
do remember the first time I saw his art. It was hanging
in a windowless salon that was tucked back in some historic building off Arch St. in Center City, Philadelphia. At
the time, Kev was experimenting with acrylic and gravity. He created these colorful abstracts with organic long
lines that flowed from one edge to the other. All of his
paintings were on odd sized pieces of wood that he found
over here and ripped off from over there. I thought, this is
inspiring, this city is inspiring. So I decided to learn more.
Since the
introduction of Mural Arts in Philadelphia
(which was originally an anti-graffiti movement) the city,
with major help of Mural Arts Executive Director Jane
Golden, has been able to develop its own unique image
and artistic community. Mural Arts found and dedicated
walls throughout the city to be painted by graffiti artists.
What this did, was to create a shift in how street art was
perceived, and how
the participants of
the program viewed
themselves and their
relationship to their
community.
They found support.
However, it
didn’t happen overnight. Golden had
to slowly win the Fall Grids, acrylic on canvas
respect of the tagging community, establish continual funding, and hone
the creativity of what is primarily underprivileged kids
in crime-ridden neighborhoods. It took time, but after
decades of innovation and fighting for this cause, Golden
has created the largest public arts program in the country.
I asked Von Holt to comment on this:
“Public arts in Philadelphia was a huge influence on
my career, there was a movement that was happening
all around me - the texture and dimension of the street
art and graffiti. The murals in Philadelphia are awe-inspiring, and so were the vast array of galleries that were
popping up and hosting First Friday shows. What they
did right was they made
Radar Love, acrylic on canvas it possible for independent artists to show their
works to the city, its visitors, and residents. My art
is very influenced by the
city’s architecture. My
cityscape paintings reflect that.” Some of Von
Holt’s cityscape paintings
are featured here.
I’ve since moved back to
Orlando and once again
walk the streets of my
hometown. Von Holt has
opened his own gallery in
the small town of Flemington, NJ an hour north
of Philadelphia. Today,
years later, we are still
buzzing from the work of
Golden and Mural Arts,
and how it has inspired
us. Von Holt is still making art, a lot of it. This guy
is prolific. “I am trying to
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