Project Type: Sculpture

November 25, 2020

We Need A Hero

WE NEED A HERO

2015-21, 100” x 144” x 8.5”, (site sets size), Unique Cast Bronze with Patina

This boy stands tall ready to defend his world. He represents all our children, the children we are to protect and care for in our world. The airplanes are their messages going out into the world. These messages both large and small are their stories, some will survive, and some will not go very far. The bombs represent messages that are incoming from both people and society on a daily basis. The blue bombs are called “Dumb Dumbs” and used just for practice and have no explosives while the white ones with a yellow ring indicate that they are highly explosive and may cause much destruction. What comes at our children in our society can be very devastating like an explosive tearing at their innocence.

Available

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

EXHIBITION HISTORY

- Ancestral Visions, Future Dreams, Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati Ohio (Oct 10-Nov 16, 2025)
- 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)
- Upturned Flower That Travels, The Volland Store, Alma, Kansas (November 6 – December 5, 2021 )
- On Turtle’s Back, Dunedin Fine Art Center, Dunedin, FL (Sept 13, 2019 -December 23, 2019)
- On Turtle’s Back, Museum of Contemporary Native Art, Santa Fe NM (May 25, 2018-January 27, 2019)
- Holly Wilson: Talk Story, C.N. Gorman Museum, University of California-Davis (January 9-March 16, 2018)
- Four by Four 2016: Midwest Invitational Exhibition, Springfield Art Museum, Springfield, Missouri (September 10 – December 4, 2016)
- A Foot in Two Worlds, Oklahoma Contemporary, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (June 18 – August 21, 2015)

We Need a Hero-v2-Holly Wilson — We Need a Hero

We Need A Hero-Holly Wilson — We Need A Hero

Springfield Art Museum “We Need a Hero” by Holly Wilson

July 20, 2020

Bloodline: The Matriarch

Bloodline: The Matriarchs

2017, 29” x 11.5’ x 9”, Unique Cast Bronze with Patina, Cedar, and Steel

The figures walk across a cedar tree base that is cut lengthwise exposing the rough center revealing the lines that show its life and history. Growing up, my mother would use cedar to purify our home, release spirits, and chase away bad dreams. That smell for me is home. I de-barked the exterior but kept the curve of the tree and its raw surface. You see the figures walking through time—their life above and the tree’s life below.

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 cast in bronze. The faces are of the ancestors from my past as far back as I can trace.

There are sections for each generation, beginning with my children. Though I only have two, there are five figures. Each life is counted and the children who did not survive are remembered with a place on the wood in history; their forms small and their heads bowed. Next, I have my section with my sisters and brother followed by my mother’s history. 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.”

Sold Through the Studio

In the Collection of Virginia Museum of Fine Art, 200 N. Boulevard Richmond, VA 23220

Exhibition History

Hear My Voice: Native American Art of the Past and Present, Virginia Museum of Fine Art, Richmond VA (August 19-November 26, 2017)
Hear My Voice: Native American Art of the Past and Present, Taubman Museum, Roanoke, Virginia (September 28 – January 6, 2018)
Hear My Voice: Native American Art of the Past and Present, Museum of the Shenandoah Valley, Winchester, Virginia (Feb 17 – July 22, 2018)

Bloodline The Matriarchs-Holly Wilson — Bloodline: The Matriarchs

June 26, 2020

Should I Stay or Should I Go

SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO

2012, 8.75″ x 22″ x 4″, Unique Cast Bronze with Patina, and African Mahogany

There are times and situations that hold us frozen and locked almost unable to make the decision of whether to stay or to go.

Sold
For inquiries, please contact:
MA Doran Gallery
3509 S. Peoria Avenue | Tulsa, OK 74105 | 918.748.8700

Exhibition History

Conversations: Eiteljorg Native Art Fellowship, Eiteljorg Museum, Indianapolis IN (November 14, 2015-February 14, 2016)
Art Now 2012, Curator Romy Owens, Eleanor Kirkpatrick Gallery, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 2012