dossier

John Holcomb Porcelain Venus Painting

John Holcomb is a Kansas painter picking fights with art history

represented by

Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery
London · Miami · New York · Since 2016

exhibition record

2 solo shows
5 group shows
3+ fairs per year for a decade

medium

Oil pastel over acrylic
Originals only · No prints

based in

Kansas, USA · 15 years painting 

practice

John Holcomb is a painter based in Kansas working in oil pastel over acrylic — loose and instinctive on the surface, with real structural intention underneath. His work moves across the female figure, florals, and the American frontier, connected less by subject matter than by attitude: bold, direct, and unapologetic about color.

artist statement

"Every subject I paint came to me with a history it didn't ask for. That's exactly why I paint it."

"I'm not interested in painting the world as it has been seen. I want the one that got painted over."

[Read the full artist statement →]

series
the original

A long-form series examining the female nude in Western art. Holcomb appropriates poses and compositions from the canon — Titian, Boucher, Matisse — not as homage but as correction. The women in these paintings were never the object within them. They are the reason the paintings exist at all.

chroma cowboys

America's most mythologized icon recast in high-chroma, feminine color. The silhouettes stay familiar; the color has other ideas. Softness here is not decoration — it is a form of defiance.

bloom

Flowers as a meditation on beauty — its variety, its defiance, its refusal to mean only one thing.

solo exhibitions
group exhibitions
select fairs

Art Los Angeles, Context Miami, Outsider Art Fair (New York), Art Paris (Grand Palais), Seattle Art Fair, Shanghai Art Fair, Texas Contemporary

collaborations

John Holcomb x Gorman
Melbourne, Australia 2023 

Gorman‍
publications

Lalka— Bolesław Prus, Wydawnictwo Marginesy, Poland, 2024.
Designer: Kira Pietrek, Cover

marginesy.com.pl
commissions

Verne Lundquist – Golf Digest
Condé Nast, May, 2017 

Portrait commission for retirement feature on the legendary CBS Sports broadcaster.
press & profile
contact
For gallery and curatorial inquiries:

Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery 
info@rebeccahossack.com
rebeccahossack.com

For press and all other inquiries: 

studio@johnholcomb.com
johnholcomb.com

contact 
links
complete record

2026 AAF New York, New York NY

2025 New York Outsider Art Fair, New York NY

2024 Cover Art, Lalka, Bolesław Prus, Wydawnictwo Marginesy, Warsaw
New York Outsider Art Fair, New York NY
Dante Biennial, Rebecca Hossack Gallery, London UK

2023 Art Palm Beach, Palm Beach FL

2022 Art Miami, Miami FL
Shanghai Art Fair, Shanghai
Echo Echo, Rebecca Hossack Gallery
Seattle Art Fair, Seattle WA
Art Market San Francisco, San Francisco CA
LA Art Show, Los Angeles CA

2021 CONTEXT Miami, Miami FL

2020 LA Art Show, Los Angeles CA

2019 Priceless, Miami Project, Miami FL
Art Miami, Miami FL
Art New York, New York NY
Art Market San Francisco, San Francisco CA
Art Palm Springs, Palm Springs CA
LA Art Show, Los Angeles CA

2018 Art Miami, Miami FL
Texas Contemporary, Houston TX
Art Market Hamptons, Bridgehampton NY
Flora, Cornell Art Museum, Miami FL
Context New York, New York NY
Art Market San Francisco, San Francisco CA
Springtime, Rebecca Hossack Gallery, April 5-28
Art Paris, Grand Palais, Paris FR
Art Palm Springs, Palm Springs CA
Outsider Art Fair, Metropolitan Pavilion, New York NY
LA Art Show, LA Convention Center, Los Angeles CA

2017 Context Miami, Context Pavilion, Miami FL
Images of Selfhood, Rebecca Hossack Gallery,
Seattle Art Fair, Seattle WA
Art Market Hamptons, Bridgehampton NY
Art New York, Pier 92, New York City NY
Art Market San Francisco, San Francisco CA
Golf Digest, Verne Lundquist, Condé Nast
Art Paris, Grand Palais, Paris FR
Outside, Rebecca Hossack Gallery NYC
Outsider Art Fair, The Metropolitan Pavilion, New York City NY

————————

2016 AI-AP Illustration Award (link)
Cheers to 2017, The Bourgeois Pig, Lawrence KS
Culture Studies (Preview), Golden Rule, Topeka KS
Settlers and Such, HAVEN, Topeka KS
Works in Progress, PTs at College Hill, Topeka KS

2015 Alumni Show, Siloam Springs, AR
Best Summer Ever, .Pop Shop, Kansas City, KS
Floral Collection, Holton KS

2013 The USP, Holton KS

2012 The Show, Siloam Springs, AR

2011 Historical Jayhawk Theater Group Show, Topeka KS

2010 ReThink Topeka, Topeka KS

2009 Spring Fling, Omaha NE
The UP, Upstage Gallery, Topeka KS

2007 First Show, Siloam Springs, AR