Hi, Hollie! To start off, can you please briefly introduce yourself to our audience?
Where are you from? What kind of art do you create? (and whatever else you’d like to share…)
My name is Hollie. I am from Chicago but go to undergrad in Ohio. I create paintings and prints mostly.
What inspires you to create? What energizes you and compels you to create something on canvas?
Artists have inspired me such as Augusta Savage, Kesha Bruce, Natalia Anciso, Norman Rockwell, Marie Laurencin, Kerry James Marshall. I am compelled by refocusing my perspective. I love creating a literal embodiment of my thought process.
Talk about your process as an artist. How do you work?
I work in three-four month obsessive 6-12 hour days working in the studio and then I won’t work again for six months. I am trying to create more often when I am in school. I usually work in 24 x 30 or 18 x 24 in sheets of watercolor or acrylic paper. I draw something sometimes telling a story. Sometimes the subject is part of a series. I usually will paint after the under drawing is finished. Color is critical I am also able to evoke mood and tension with my color palette.
What advice would you give to emerging artists? Another way to think about it: what advice would you give to your 18-year-old self?
Don’t stop making and creating if you can. Take advantage of your free time to make work,
Interview & Art
By Hollie Davis
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GS&NS: Hi, Hollie! Please introduce yourself to our readers.
Hollie: My name is Hollie. I am from Chicago but go to undergrad in Ohio. I create paintings and prints mostly.
GS&NS: Some of your artwork recently featured on girlsenseandnonsense.org depicts scenes of protest. Would you comfortably call your work political? Why is it important for your art to depict resistance?
Hollie: Some of it is political work. I like to discuss resistance because of the polarizing climate that is the reality of the Trump era and American politics for the past decade. The consistent underrepresentation of women of color in the art world politicizes my work regardless of subject. Not all my work deals with political subjects. However I defy stereotypes about people like me in my ability as an artist.
GirlSense and NonSense