Robin Holder

Robin Holder (born 1952) is a contemporary American visual artist and activist Holder is known for her mixed-media printmaking and paintings which focus on themes of spiritual and racial identity, class, social justice, and personal experience. Robin Holder was commissioned to create several site-specific public art installations throughout the Northeastern United States, including New York City and New Jersey. A number of her two-dimensional works can be found in several collections, including the Library of Congress, the Washington State Arts Commission, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Robin has been involved in arts education for over thirty years.

Early life and education Robin Holder, born in Chicago in 1952 and raised in New York City, is the daughter of an African American Episcopalian father and a Caucasian Russian American Jewish mother. Her family and the communities she engaged with from an early age were focused on social issues and political activism, making her conscious of the apparent gendered, racial, religious and socio-economic disparities around her. Robin attended high school in New York City, graduating in 1969 from the LaGuardia High School Of Music and Arts. Holder received a scholarship to The Art Students League of New York (1969–71) where she studied under Marshall Glasier, Vaclav Vytlacil, Morris Kantor, and Rudolf Baranik. After studying at The Art Students League of New York, Holder moved to Mexico and spent time creating art. She also worked for a year at the Amsterdams Grafisch Atelier studying lithography (1976-1977) and after became the assistant director for Robert Blackburn's Printmaking Workshop in New York City until 1986.

Career After leaving her position at Bob Blackburn's Printmaking Workshop, Holder went on to become a master teaching artist at The Studio in a School and a resident artist educator at The Children's Museum of Manhattan until 1989, when she received a grant from the Manhattan Graphics Center.

Public works and installations

2006 – Migrations, Flushing Avenue station (BMT Jamaica Line) 2002– Bayonne. 5 paintings for the Hudson Bergen Light Rail System, NJ. 1996– Portraits and Patterns, Public Art for Public Schools, NY.

Awards Individual Artist Grant, Brooklyn Arts Council. Fellowship with The Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop. In this collection, which began in 1999 and was displayed in its entirety at the Kentler International Drawing Space in 2020, Holder explores the many concepts of "home" and how inequalities experienced by individuals impact the every day human existence.

Warrior Women Wizards: Mystical Magical Mysteries (1985–2009)

The series Warrior Women Wizards: Mystical Magical Mysteries began in 1985. The series consists of 14 fine art prints on paper that explore the connections and feelings of spirituality and femininity as seen through the eyes and soul of the artist.

Process and techniques Holder describes her process for making art in an interview with Educurious as such:“The process of making art is really an adventure. I start with an idea or a feeling or a concept or a relationship with something in the world or something in my family or my surroundings and I explore it.” Robin works in series which tend to span decades in order to fully explore the different perspectives, eras, and patterns the subjects provide while exhausting her choices of materials and mediums for a specific piece. Just like the layered and complex subject matter on which Holder bases her works, each piece in a series Robin creates is built through layers of printmaking techniques, collage, patterns, hand painted details, words, stencils, paper crafts, and drawings.