The Art of Scott Holloway and Cynthia Woehrle of PaintingLoft.com
By Brian Goslow

You might think that a website called PaintingLoft.com would feature a battalion of artists ~ but in actuality, it features just two Worcester residents, the husband and wife team of Scott Holloway and Cynthia Woehrle, who have created a multi-genre collection of works that could fill a whole gallery.

The “Painting Loft” turns out to be their two-bedroom apartment which includes studios set up in adjoining rooms. Bellingham native Holloway met Woehrle, who grew up in Dover, New Hampshire, while attending the Montserrat College of Art in Beverly; they moved to Worcester in 1997, marrying in 2000. That art school background allows them to give each other a qualified critique when the situation arises, especially when Scott’s laboring over one of his commissioned portraits and Cindy’s comfortably painting a scene she recently experienced.

“It looks like she’s having lots of fun over there,” says Holloway. “It’s much looser while I’m over here all strict working on a stripe on a tie. But we both use traditional material.” Those materials include rabbit skin glue and marble dust from Italy ~ “The same dust Michelangelo sculpted his angel from,” Holloway says, explaining that the dust is mixed together then adjoined to wood. “You can get a pearl feeling. You don’t have the distraction of the canvas.”

While Holloway’s bio calls him “New England’s premier classical portrait artist,” he notes the field isn’t what it used to be, as the age of the Shock of the New and Pop Art has made Renaissance age-inspired artists a rarity. “It’s really hard to find people who do my stuff,” says Holloway, who markets his services to lawyers, judges, and colleges. He’s currently working on a portrait of a retiring Tufts University dean; previously, he painted former Worcester State College President Kaylan Ghosh and also Benjamin Franklin for the Town of Franklin.
Holloway also creates more esoteric paintings featuring religious imagery, skulls, and pulsating body parts. “I’ve always loved anatomy,” he says. I studied it a lot because of portraiture. Understanding sculptural anatomy makes me a better painter.” One series of work features skulls that represent Adam and the crucifixion complimented by Biblical text from the Book of Genesis. Another series ~ which originated as a series of Valentine’s Day paintings to Cynthia ~ features hearts joined by anatomical textbook writings.

While many landscape artists like to paint on location, Woehrle prefers to use her memory or photographs from her visit. “I’d rather experience it and paint it later,” she says. Holloway calls her recent work “…a diary of the places she’s been.” Her Shenandoah Series resulted from her and Scott arriving at the national park just after a huge weather disturbance had come through.

Whenever there’s an oncoming storm, Woehrle loves to hit the road to take in all the visual elements an atmospheric event can provide. “I get inspiration from the weather,” she says. “During that huge storm that barged through here at the start of June, I took 100 pictures between taking the Auburn Turnpike exit and arriving at the Chamber of Commerce for the Worcester Windows opening.” She’s currently working on paintings of Green Hill Park, the Enfield Lookout at the Quabbin Reservoir, and a storm over the Shrewsbury side of Lake Quinsigamond.

While they’ve both been working on their art for over a decade, Scott and Cindy have only recently made the jump from “hobby to part-time” artists, in part because it took them that long to create a large enough collection of work to secure their own shows. Each will have a painting in the ARTSWorcester Summer Show that opens on July 17; that’ll serve as a preview of their own show scheduled for this fall at Arts Worcester.

See more of Scott and Cindy’s work at www.paintingloft.com!