Best known for the jewelry and figurative sculptures based on a range of pharmaceutical drugs that garnered her widespread notoriety in the late 1990s, prolific artist Colleen Wolstenholme has also created abstract drawings and other works over the years that continue to stimulate dialogue and attract attention.
Born in 1963 in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Wolstenholme became interested in visual arts while studying fashion design at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. After earning her bachelor’s degree in fine arts in 1986, she continued her studies and received her master’s degree from the State University of New York at New Paltz in 1992, where she specialized in metal and jewelry arts.
Throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s, Wolstenholme worked with a range of mediums such as jewelry, sculpture, digital collage, painting and embroidery to create art that served as social criticism. Beginning in the mid-1990s, she made oversized plaster-cast sculptures and silver or gold jewelry that took the form of antidepressant pills and capsules in order to address several issues, including the fact that drugs are prescribed at disproportionate rates to women versus men, that the healthcare industry is overly reliant on prescribing drugs, and that anyone in treatment and on a course of medication is generally made to feel less healthy than those who aren’t. Wolstenholme’s provocative work made headlines in the Guardian, the Los Angeles Times and Psychology Today.
Wolstenholme’s art has also seen her unpacking her interest in the human brain. This is demonstrated in such abstract sculptures as Deviant Grid, the “Matrix Index” series and Spatial Anomaly in which she depicts the brain’s neurons. In her “Hyperobjects” series, Wolstenholme also focuses on systems that “humans have little power over but control and constrain us.” These include figurative drawings and abstract drawings of wind patterns, titled with geographical coordinates.
Wolstenholme’s art is part of the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and the Confederation Centre Art Gallery in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.
On 1stDibs, find a range of Colleen Wolstenholme sculptures, drawings and watercolor paintings.
Glass Octopus Oil Painting on Wood Panel, Contemporary, 2010-
By Colleen Wolstenholme
Located in Montreal, Quebec
With Into the Deep Blue Sea, Nova Scotia-born, New Brunswick-based artist Colleen Wolstenholme presents a series of deep sea oil paintings and ink drawings, accompanied by a tent ins...
Oil, Wood Panel
Glass Squid Oil Painting on Wood Panel, Contemporary, 2010-
By Colleen Wolstenholme
Located in Montreal, Quebec
With Into the Deep Blue Sea, Nova Scotia-born, New Brunswick-based artist Colleen Wolstenholme presents a series of deep sea oil paintings and ink drawings, accompanied by a tent ins...
Oil, Wood Panel
Triptych Oil Painting on Wood Panel, Contemporary, 2010+, Unframed
By Colleen Wolstenholme
Located in Montreal, Quebec
With Into the Deep Blue Sea, Nova Scotia-born, New Brunswick-based artist Colleen Wolstenholme presents a series of deep sea oil paintings and ink drawings, accompanied by a tent ins...
Oil, Wood Panel
$6,500
Holothurian Oil Painting on Wood Panel, Contemporary, 2010+, Unframed
By Colleen Wolstenholme
Located in Montreal, Quebec
With Into the Deep Blue Sea, Nova Scotia-born, New Brunswick-based artist Colleen Wolstenholme presents a series of deep sea oil paintings and ink drawings, accompanied by a tent ins...
Oil, Wood Panel
$6,500
Into the Deep Blue Sea Painting, Contemporary Oil on Wood Panel, 2010+
By Colleen Wolstenholme
Located in Montreal, Quebec
With Into the Deep Blue Sea, Nova Scotia-born, New Brunswick-based artist Colleen Wolstenholme presents a series of deep sea oil paintings and ink drawings, accompanied by a tent ins...
Oil, Wood Panel
Bloody-Belly Comb Jelly Painting, Contemporary Oil on Wood, 2010+
By Colleen Wolstenholme
Located in Montreal, Quebec
With Into the Deep Blue Sea, Nova Scotia-born, New Brunswick-based artist Colleen Wolstenholme presents a series of deep sea oil paintings and ink drawings, accompanied by a tent ins...
Oil, Wood Panel
Helmet Jellyfish Oil Painting on Wood Panel, Contemporary, 2010+
By Colleen Wolstenholme
Located in Montreal, Quebec
With Into the Deep Blue Sea, Nova Scotia-born, New Brunswick-based artist Colleen Wolstenholme presents a series of deep sea oil paintings and ink drawings, accompanied by a tent ins...
Oil, Wood Panel
Into the Deep Triptych, Contemporary Oil on Wood Panel, 2010-
By Colleen Wolstenholme
Located in Montreal, Quebec
With Into the Deep Blue Sea, Nova Scotia-born, New Brunswick-based artist Colleen Wolstenholme presents a series of deep sea oil paintings and ink drawings, accompanied by a tent ins...
Oil, Wood Panel
Yellow Ctenophore Oil Painting on Wood Panel, Contemporary, 2010-
By Colleen Wolstenholme
Located in Montreal, Quebec
With Into the Deep Blue Sea, Nova Scotia-born, New Brunswick-based artist Colleen Wolstenholme presents a series of deep sea oil paintings and ink drawings, accompanied by a tent ins...
Oil, Wood Panel
Into the Deep Triptych, Contemporary Oil on Wood Panel, 2010-
By Colleen Wolstenholme
Located in Montreal, Quebec
With Into the Deep Blue Sea, Nova Scotia-born, New Brunswick-based artist Colleen Wolstenholme presents a series of deep sea oil paintings and ink drawings, accompanied by a tent ins...
Oil, Wood Panel
Into the Deep Triptych, Contemporary Oil on Wood Panel, 2010-
By Colleen Wolstenholme
Located in Montreal, Quebec
With Into the Deep Blue Sea, Nova Scotia-born, New Brunswick-based artist Colleen Wolstenholme presents a series of deep sea oil paintings and ink drawings, accompanied by a tent ins...
Oil, Wood Panel
Into the Deep Triptych, Contemporary Oil on Wood Panel, 2010-
By Colleen Wolstenholme
Located in Montreal, Quebec
With Into the Deep Blue Sea, Nova Scotia-born, New Brunswick-based artist Colleen Wolstenholme presents a series of deep sea oil paintings and ink drawings, accompanied by a tent ins...
Oil, Wood Panel
$4,500
Radiolarian Oil Painting on Wood Panel, Contemporary, Unframed, 24x24
By Colleen Wolstenholme
Located in Montreal, Quebec
With Into the Deep Blue Sea, Nova Scotia-born, New Brunswick-based artist Colleen Wolstenholme presents a series of deep sea oil paintings and ink drawings, accompanied by a tent ins...
Oil, Wood Panel
$4,500
Solmissus Jelly Oil Painting on Wood Panel, Contemporary, 24x24, 2010+
By Colleen Wolstenholme
Located in Montreal, Quebec
With Into the Deep Blue Sea, Nova Scotia-born, New Brunswick-based artist Colleen Wolstenholme presents a series of deep sea oil paintings and ink drawings, accompanied by a tent ins...
Oil, Wood Panel
Pelagic Polychaete Oil Painting on Wood Panel, Contemporary, 24x24
By Colleen Wolstenholme
Located in Montreal, Quebec
With Into the Deep Blue Sea, Nova Scotia-born, New Brunswick-based artist Colleen Wolstenholme presents a series of deep sea oil paintings and ink drawings, accompanied by a tent ins...
Oil, Wood Panel
Barreleye Fish Oil Painting on Wood Panel, Unframed, 24x24
By Colleen Wolstenholme
Located in Montreal, Quebec
With Into the Deep Blue Sea, Nova Scotia-born, New Brunswick-based artist Colleen Wolstenholme presents a series of deep sea oil paintings and ink drawings, accompanied by a tent ins...
Oil, Wood Panel
Blanket Squid Oil Painting on Wood Panel, Contemporary, 2010-
By Colleen Wolstenholme
Located in Montreal, Quebec
With Into the Deep Blue Sea, Nova Scotia-born, New Brunswick-based artist Colleen Wolstenholme presents a series of deep sea oil paintings and ink drawings, accompanied by a tent ins...
Oil, Wood Panel
Benthic Ctenophore Oil Painting on Wood Panel, Contemporary, 2010-
By Colleen Wolstenholme
Located in Montreal, Quebec
With Into the Deep Blue Sea, Nova Scotia-born, New Brunswick-based artist Colleen Wolstenholme presents a series of deep sea oil paintings and ink drawings, accompanied by a tent ins...
Oil, Wood Panel
$1,692
H 9.06 in W 13.78 in D 1.97 in
Dreamer - 21st Century Figure Painting of a nude Girl Sleeping on a Couch
By Carolien van Olphen
Located in Nuenen, Noord Brabant
Carolien van Olphen Dreamer Oil on wood panel 23 x 35 cm (Framed 31 x 41 cm, frame is included) Dutch artist Carolien van Olphen has left a great impression in many places with her...
Oil, Wood Panel
$5,088
H 9.85 in W 11.82 in D 1.97 in
Wedgwood Etruria with Anemones - 21st Century Contemporary Still-Life Painting
By Ingrid Smuling
Located in Nuenen, Noord Brabant
This still-life is painted by Dutch Painter Ingrid Smuling. The now 77-year-old artist is still most in her element when she is painting in her beautiful studio in the middle of The...
Oil, Wood Panel
"Something on My Mind"
By Ron Hicks
Located in Scottsdale, AZ
Born in Columbus, Ohio, in 1965, Ron Hicks was an avid artist from an early age. Hicks began his formal studies in art at the Columbus College of Art and Design in Ohio. Hicks contin...
Oil, Wood Panel
Farewell
By Joel Sager
Located in Columbia, MO
Joel D. Sager (b. 1980) is a contemporary American painter of landscapes, still-life and portraiture. Often drawing on such standard subject matter with economy and singularity— a solitary figure in a room or misplaced sock on a bed— the conceptual element of his work becomes a contemplation on meaning for even the simplest objects: person, place, or thing. Sager's process often involves a distinctive mixture of media, incorporating tar with oil pigments, or wallpaper with squid ink...
Oil, Wood Panel
Summer's End
By Carole Garland
Located in Palm Desert, CA
"Summer's End" -- As summer still simmers, the signs of it coming to an end are apparent. Children are going back to school and cooler nights approach. In the meantime, sunbathers fi...
Oil, Wood Panel
$2,538
H 5.99 in W 10.99 in D 1.19 in
Lemniscate - 21st Century Contemporary Realistic Still life Painting
By Erik van de Beek
Located in Nuenen, Noord Brabant
Erik van de Beek (Dutch artist) Lemniscate 15,2 x 27,9 cm ( framed included 19,2 x 31,9 cm) Oil paint on wood panel Artist Erik van de Beek lives and works in Nijmegen. The modest N...
Oil, Wood Panel
$24,000
H 44 in W 44 in D 4 in
"See Water (bottles)", swimmer, seas, figurative painting, underwater reflection
By Carol Bennett
Located in Edgartown, MA
"See Water (bottles)" is a luminous oil on wood panel painting by Carol Bennett. It captures the quiet magic of a figure suspended just beneath the water's surface, where light, mov...
Oil, Wood Panel
Andrea Bonfils - Beehive Black, Painting 2021
By Andrea Bonfils
Located in Greenwich, CT
Series: Beehives Beeswax and fabric over beehive and honeycomb panels Size: 36” x 26” x 1.5” This Painting will be shipped directly from the artist's studio.
Wax, Encaustic, Oil, Wood Panel
Nude Ascending
By Nansi Bielanski Gallup and David C. Gallup
Located in Palm Desert, CA
On a recent trip to the Caribbean, Nansi and David were frequently surrounded by large shoals of Palometa fish, a privilege which inspired this painting, “Nude Ascending”. The motif, a nude swimmer interacting peacefully-almost spiritually-with ocean life, has become one of the trademarks of the husband and wife collaborative duo. Nansi Bielanski Gallup & David C. Gallup are fine artists living in Southern California and in the small island...
Oil, Wood Panel
Racing the Waves
By Carole Garland
Located in Palm Desert, CA
A Mother and her Children. A mother clutches her toddler to her breast and grabs her young son as they make for the shoreline to escape the churning Pacific Ocean waters. Are they ru...
Oil, Wood Panel
$2,800
H 24 in W 18 in D 2 in
Leaving David (Contemporary Abstracted Figurative Painting on wood panel)
Located in Hudson, NY
Leaving David (Contemporary vertical painting of abstract woman in a blue dress by the water) 24 x 18 inches, oil on wood panel, unframed signed on verso Joan Hanley works in a figu...
Oil, Wood Panel
Beach Girls II
By Carole Garland
Located in Palm Desert, CA
Beach Girls II - As we wait for summer to arrive we can dream of days at the beach where all are cares are thrown to the wind. The sun roasts us as we relax into the soft sand. But w...
Oil, Wood Panel
Yellow Siphonophore
By Colleen Wolstenholme
Located in Montreal, Quebec
With Into the Deep Blue Sea, Nova Scotia-born, New Brunswick-based artist Colleen Wolstenholme presents a series of deep sea oil paintings and ink drawings, accompanied by a tent ins...
Oil, Wood Panel