Currently on view in a Solo Exhibition
“On Turtle’s Back”
September 8 – October 11, 2022
Pauly Friedman Art Gallery
Misericordia University
301 Lake Street
Dallas, PA 18612
1.570.674.8420
For inquiries, please contact: The Studio
Mustang, OK 73064 | 405.308.0239
IN THE COLLECTION OF
Pauly Friedman Art Gallery, Misericordia University, Dallas, Pennsylvania
Exhibition History
On Turtle’s Back, Pauly Friedman Art Gallery, Misericordia University, Dallas, Pennsylvania (September 8 – October 11, 2022)
2020, Unique Cast Bronze with Patina and Geode
14” x 9.5” x 9” (set), 8” x 6” x 7.5” (boy), 8” x 6” x 9” (girl)
The sense of self is your perception of oneself and an awareness of who you truly are: your beliefs, purpose, values, and ideals. Your sense of self grounds you on your path within the world, grounding us whether in a place or our oneself. This girl and boy are not two people but oneself, two halves of a whole, a whole self. The geode reflects the same and when broken open reveals its two sides and the secrets hidden within. Here I have a girl and a boy; I see them as the feminine and masculine in us all. The figures are fitted to this one geode when they are still in wax; they are not glued but keyed to the rock that they belong to, two sides of the self, two halves of a whole. They balance in their place much like we do in our life.
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
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
We Need A HeroSpringfield Art Museum “We Need a Hero” by Holly Wilson
The way we see others and how one is seen has been a subject that I have had in my life since I was small. I am both Native American and Caucasian but growing up I felt more times than I care to count that I was not enough of one or the other and that pull made me question all parts of myself. If I did not look like _____ could I be ______? Where did I fit if I was not a part of this or that group? I have had conversations with many that are from other races and that too was a struggle as well. Is my skin too dark or not dark enough, the texture of my hair or the accent that I speak with?
All of this history, this past came to a head one day while getting my children ready for school we were pulling together pencils, folders, colored pencils, and crayons. They had to have 4 sets of 24 crayons each and we had leftovers from sets of the past years, some colors had never been used, and we were combining them together so we’d know how many new boxes would be required. The kids were talking about their friends at the new school and friends from their past school. In the conversation, they were describing the children “the girl with the yellow hair, the boy with the brown skin”, in a very casual descriptive manner with no malice to the differences.
This made me think more about how we see people and how one is judged. The smell of the crayons, the vivid colors, and the thoughts of my youth brought me to the crayon project. How we change in our viewpoints of people, and how we judge people based on race and color. We are all one below that surface, that surface of the skin, no matter the color, the shape, or the origin. I think if we could see ourselves as all the colors in the crayon box in all the shades we would be kinder we would be able to feel if just for a moment another’s life and our world could change in such a way that kids don’t worry about if they are too light or too dark or if their hair is the right texture to belong and they could feel accepted as the person they are. There are 7 girls and each girl is made from 7 colors in a Crayola Crayon box making a total of 49 girls.
Sold
For inquiries, please contact: MA Doran Gallery
3509 S. Peoria Avenue | Tulsa, OK 74105 | 918.748.8700
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.”
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.
The Studio
11400 Riverview | Mustang, OK 73064 | 405.308.0239
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
Under Our Skin and Spectrums Within Under Our Skin
