Project Type: Available

Within We Are the Light-detail above 2-Holly Wilson

Within We Are the Light

Within We Are the Light
38”x28”x 28”, Clay, Blown Glass, Bronze, Sterling Silver, Steel, Wood

Within We Are the Light, is based on talking to my son about his excitement and his future, I recorded these thoughts while he was sleeping as I was drove him to his first year of college.

It is from within that we are the light it is from within that we are the future

His chest open, exposing the vulnerabilities and his hope.

Little shards of Clay fill his body, they are pieces of possibilities. Some are parts of his history and some are parts of his story yet untold. They surround and cradle the Blown glass held in the arms of the branch that grows from within him the branch giving a Scissor Tail Flycatcher rest on a limb. Their shared perseverance, endurance, and inner strength a piece of home.

Available

For inquiries, please contact:
The Studio
Mustang, OK 73064 | 405.308.0239

Exhibition History

  • The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Oct 5 – Dec 31, 2024)
Within We Are the Light-Detail 2-Holly Wilson
Within We Are the Light
Within We Are the Light-FSide view-Holly Wilson
Within We Are the Light
Within We Are the Light-Top back2-Holly Wilson
Within We Are the Light
Bloodline Keeper of the Seeds-Holly Wilson

Bloodline, Keeper of the Seeds

Bloodline, Keeper of the Seeds
2021, 30″ x 98″ x 18″ in, Unique cast bronze with patina, cedar, and steel

It is a matriarchal society that my family lineage comes from; the woman cared for the children and the stories of their family. They told the history and planted the seeds for the next generation. Their lives, my life, and that of my daughter are full of the twists and turns that women hold in our society.

The Cigar Figures come from a childhood Native American story that my mother told of the “Stick People.” The “Stick People” would run through the night and call your name; if you went with them, you were never heard from again. She never described the figures, and I was always drawn to the idea of what they looked like. The Cigar Figures are my reimagining of that story, now a story of family and my past—a complicated narrative of loss, survival, and resilience. The figures are made from real cigars and found sticks, all cast in bronze. The faces are of the ancestors and family shaped from the idea of a cameo or silhouette painting to capture the faces of the families.

When hung, the light casts a shadow of the figures on the wall. This shadow represents memory for me. Like a shadow, these memories cannot be held, and in the end, we are all only a shadow in history, shadows on this earth.

Available

For inquiries, please contact:
The Studio
Mustang, OK 73064 | 405.308.0239

Exhibition History

  • To Take Shape and Meaning, North Carolina Museum of Art,  Raleigh, North Carolina (March 2–July 28, 2024)
  • EXPO Chicago 2023, Center for Native Futures, Chicago Illinois (April 13-16, 2023)
  • Upturned Flower That Travels, The Volland Store, Alma, Kansas (November 6 – December 5, 2021 )
    Bloodline Keeper of the Seed-installed at Volland-Holly Wilson
    Bloodline Keeper of the Seed
    installed at Volland

    Bloodline Keeper of the Seed-side-installed at Volland-Holly Wilson
    Bloodline Keeper of the Seed
    Installed at The Volland Store
Bloodline Keeper of the Seeds
I Am More Than Fluff-sv-Holly Wilson

I Am More than Fluff

I Am More than Fluff

Unique Cast Bronze, Patina, Glass, Brass, and Feathers, 14” x 6” x 6”, 2022

I am more than the view that my people are frozen in time, lost to a romanticized ideal of who the Native Americans were, we are more, and we are still here. I am not this fluff; I am here; I am loud and larger than life.

Available

For inquiries, please contact:
The Studio
Mustang, OK 73064 | 405.308.0239

Exhibition History

  • The Thread that Connects, Spiva Center for the Arts, Joplin Missouri (January 14 – March 4)
  • On Turtle’s Back, Pauly Friedman Art Gallery, Misericordia University, Dallas, Pennsylvania (September 8 – October 11, 2022)
I Am More Than Fluff-Holly Wilson
I Am More Than Fluff
I Am More Than Fluff-detail-Holly Wilson
I Am More Than Fluff

I Am More Than Fluff-open-Holly Wilson

Spectrums Within Under Our Skin-Detail-Holly Wilson-2m

Spectrums Within Under Our Skin

Spectrums Within Under Our Skin

2018, 100″ x 70″ x 2″, Crayola Crayon

Spectrums Within Under Our Skin is 144 girls made from Crayola Crayon. There are 12 different girls, each girl is made from the 12 colors I see when I look at the color spectrum that forms a beam of light. I wish we could see the light within us all and the variations that make each of us that light, passing through a prism showing the many spectrums within us all. We are more than classifications regarding a position between two extremes, we are all the colors and an untold number of possibilities. It takes all these colors to create the light.

Available

For inquiries, please contact:

The Studio
11400 Riverview | Mustang, OK 73064 | 405.308.0239

Exhibition History

  • Native Futures, Center for Native Futures, Chicago, IL (September 16, 2023 – May 17, 2024)
  • Science Museum Oklahoma, 2020 Remington Pl, Oklahoma City, OK 73111 (November 9th, 2018 – Aug 4, 2019)
Spectrum Within Under Our Skin-Holly Wilson
Spectrum Within Under Our Skin-Holly Wilson

Exhibition History

  • “Native Futures”, Sept 16, 2023 – May 17, 2024, Center for Native Future, Chicago, IL
  • Oklahoma’s smArt Space Galleries
    Beautiful Minds – Dyslexia and the Creative Advantage, Science Museum Oklahoma, 2020 Remington Pl, Oklahoma City, OK 73111 (November 9th, 2018 – Aug 4, 2019)

 

Installed view at theScience Museums Oklahoma’s smArt Space Galleries
Beautiful Minds – Dyslexia and the Creative Advantage

Science Museum Install-Holly Wilson
Under Our Skin and Spectrums Within Under Our Skin
Stories of the Matriarchs

Stories of the Matriarchs

Stories of the Matriarchs
Unique Cast Bronze, Patina, Reclaimed Rocking Chair Leg
10.75” x 31.75” x 3”, 2023

The figures are five generations of women: granddaughter, daughter, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother. The base they walk on is from a rocking chair that my mother gave to me. Looking at the leg of the rocker I remember holding and singing my children to sleep, watching them drift off and dream. In the rocker I would tell them stories and I was honored to hold in my arms the next generation, that next life and dream with them the many yet untold stories they would create and tell their children.

The Cigar Figures come from a childhood Native American story that my mother told of the “Stick People.” The “Stick People” would run through the night and call your name; if you went with them, you were never heard from again. She never described the figures, and I was always drawn to the idea of what they looked like. The Cigar Figures are my reimagining of that story, now a story of family and my past—a complicated narrative of loss, survival, and resilience. The figures are made from real cigars and found sticks, all cast in bronze. The faces are of the ancestors and family shaped from the idea of a cameo or silhouette painting to capture the faces of the families.

When hung, the light casts a shadow of the figures on the wall. This shadow represents memory for me. Like a shadow, these memories cannot be held, and in the end, we are all only a shadow in history, shadows on this earth.

Available

For inquiries, please contact:

Bonner David Galleries

7040 E. Main Street | Scottsdale, Arizona 85251 | 480.941.8500 | www.BonnerDavid.com

Newa Four-Holly Wilson

Newa: Four

Newa: Four
Unique Cast Bronze, Patina, Reclaimed Boxcar Wood
9.5” x 12.25” x 2.25”, 2023

Newa is the Delaware Lenape word for the number four. This family of newa walks on a base that is cut from the floor of a train boxcar. There is history held in this floor of marks, lines made, and the secrets held inside; like that of family’s and the history held inside each of us marking our life on this earth.

The Cigar Figures come from a childhood Native American story that my mother told of the “Stick People.” The “Stick People” would run through the night and call your name; if you went with them, you were never heard from again. She never described the figures, and I was always drawn to the idea of what they looked like. The Cigar Figures are my reimagining of that story, now a story of family and my past—a complicated narrative of loss, survival, and resilience. The figures are made from real cigars and found sticks, all cast in bronze. The faces are of the ancestors and family shaped from the idea of a cameo or silhouette painting to capture the faces of the families.

When hung, the light casts a shadow of the figures on the wall. This shadow represents memory for me. Like a shadow, these memories cannot be held, and in the end, we are all only a shadow in history, shadows on this earth.

Available

For inquiries, please contact:

Bonner David Galleries

7040 E. Main Street | Scottsdale, Arizona 85251 | 480.941.8500 | www.BonnerDavid.com

Paper Wings Fearless-Holly Wilson

PAPER WINGS: FEARLESS

PAPER WINGS: FEARLESS

21”x 23” x 13”, Unique Cast Bronze with Patina

It started with looking at my children playing and making their other world, if they needed wings they would make them from paper and sticks tied together. Their masks were transforming and all-consuming for them they believed and they became the bird.

We use a mask as a facade to be the thing we sometimes can not be, to fill that spot or give us courage.

Sometimes it is the unknown that we fear so we do not step when it is the step into that unknown that we need to live and breath. The figure prepares to fly away on her paper wings. It is a leap of faith that her wings will hold. In that moment she must be fearless to take the leap.

Available

For inquiries, please contact:
The Studio
Mustang, OK 73064 | 405.308.0239

Exhibition History

  • EXPO Chicago 2023, (April 13-16) Center for Native Futures, Chicago Illinois
  • The Thread that Connects, Spiva Center for the Arts, Joplin Missouri (January 14 – March 4)
  • On Turtle’s Back, Pauly Friedman Art Gallery, Misericordia University, Dallas, Pennsylvania (September 8 – October 11, 2022)
  • Holly Wilson: Talk Story, C.N. Gorman Museum, University of California-Davis (January 9-March 16, 2018)
Paper Wings Fearless-at CN Gorman Museum-Holly Wilson
I Am-Holly Wilson

I Am

I Am

12″ x 9″ x 2.5″, Encaustic on Birch, 2023

I am Resilience I am Resistance I am Powerful I am Still Here

Available

For inquiries, please contact:
The Studio
Mustang, OK 73064 | 405.308.0239

Bloosline Building Community-Holly Wilson

Bloodline: Portrait of Community

Bloodline: Portrait of Community

Unique Cast Bronze, Patina, Cedar and Steel, 20” x 84” x 10”, 2022

There is the family you are born into and then there is the family you make. They are the friends you made in school, the neighbor’s you live by and the colleagues at your work. You watch the children grow and tell the secret wishes you have for them. You have meals together; you share in the joy the ups and the down and you bring them love and kindness when they have lost a loved one. We build an extended family that grows year by year and that makes for a community that is full of rich diversity, compassion, and love.

My mother told me of the “Stick People,” a Delaware/Lenape story; they would run through the night calling your name, beckoning you to follow; if you went with them, you were never heard from again. I am reimagining that story, now a story of family and friends. My family’s history—a complicated narrative of loss, erasure, survival, and resilience. The figures are made from real cigars and found sticks; I now call them “Cigar Figures.” Their faces are of the ancestors, family, and friends, echoing the form of a cameo or silhouette painting, capturing family images. They walk upon a cedar log from my land in Oklahoma; I have heard cedar called mother. She carries the people on her back, and we can see the paths made on her bark by the tiny animals that lived their lives below her skin. All these lives lived together as a community, listening to the secret dreams of our children whispered to the wind, growing year by year, full of life, compassion, and love, above, below, and here.

When hung, the light casts a shadow of the figures on the wall. This shadow represents memory for me. Like a shadow, these memories cannot be held, and in the end, we are all only a shadow in history, shadows on this earth.

Available

For inquiries, please contact:
The Studio
Mustang, OK 73064 | 405.308.0239

Exhibition History

  • Seen Unseen, Feb 21 – July 14, Duhesa Gallery Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado

 

Bloodline Building Community-Holly Wilson-back

Bloodline: Building Community

Bloodline Building Community-Holly Wilson-sv
Bloodline: Building Community
Bloodline Building Community-Holly Wilson-front
Bloodline: Building Community