Discover how Asheville artist Christopher Holt blends social consciousness and reverence for nature in his frescoes and murals, creating powerful works that honor humanity and history.
By Brandon Rosas
Social consciousness and a reverence for nature inform the paintings of Christopher Holt (b. 1977), who makes his home in Asheville, North Carolina. “For me as an artist, creating is about respect, honor, and finding beauty,” he explains. “Sharing and seeing people for who they are lifts us out of the moment.”
Holt’s childhood love of drawing led him to the art department of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was mentored by Cree artist Kimowan Metchewais. After graduating, he traveled throughout Central America and Mexico, visiting ancient sites like Chichén Itzá and discovering the frescoes of Diego Rivera.
Upon returning to Asheville, Holt joined the renowned fresco artist Benjamin Franklin Long IV at his newly founded art school in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Over the next decade, Holt served the school in roles ranging from janitor to executive director while assisting on Long’s murals. “I absolutely love fresco,” he declares. “I love it for the teamwork it involves, for the way it affects everyone around it, and for how it connects us to those first artists who decided to leave their mark so many thousands of years ago.”
The closure of Long’s school led Holt to open his own studio, where he now creates works for both private collections and public enjoyment. In 2019, he led a team to complete a fresco picturing the Beatitudes as modeled by members of Asheville’s Haywood Street Church — many of whom have experienced poverty, addiction, and mental illness. This yearlong project was chronicled in the documentary “Theirs Is the Kingdom,” which aired on PBS and is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
More recently, Holt was chosen to create a mural for the Greg Poole, Jr. All Faiths Chapel at Dorothea Dix Park to honor the complex cultural history of this site in Raleigh, North Carolina’s capital. Above the doorway to the sanctuary roosts “Bird of Humanity,” Holt’s winged figure inspired by a sculpture from the ancient city of Persepolis and by the photographs of Hugh Mangum (1877–1922), who documented daily life in the South as experienced by both black and white people.
“The fact that Mangum’s work was almost lost to history before being found to inspire the future has become a metaphor for Dix Park; this was once Native land, then a plantation and a psychiatric hospital, and now is a public park for all,” says Holt. “These two inspirations came together to create a new image of strength and welcome — a soul looking back at us, carrying us into a hopeful future together. We are the key to the ‘Bird of Humanity’ soaring.”
This article was originally published in Fine Art Connoisseur magazine (subscribe here).
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