OPENING RECEPTION
Friday, May 27, 5–7pm
ARTIST TALK & WALKTHROUGH
Saturday, May 28, 12-1pm
(May 2022) Holly Roberts shares over two years of creative output in For Just A Moment, the artist’s second solo exhibition at form & concept. Never-before-exhibited work featuring beloved motifs, including faces, horses and coyotes, mingle with new subjects and aesthetics. Stories from the artist’s blog detailing influences and process will appear beside key artworks. An opening reception with the artist will be held on Friday, May 27, 5–7pm and an Artist Talk & Walkthrough is scheduled the following day on Saturday, May 28, 12-1pm.
“As an artist, and an introvert, the lockdown allowed me to get that much closer to nature,” writes Holly Roberts. “Nature is the one thing that I couldn’t be locked out of.” When the world shut down due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Roberts revved up her artistic practice. She had all the raw materials she needed in and around her studio in rural New Mexico. Roberts documents her life and surroundings through photography, and then fragments and layers the imagery in mixed-media paintings. She also maintains a writing practice, describing her influences and process on her long-running blog.
Roberts writes, “I could watch the coyotes in the field behind our house as they trotted by going about their coyote business. Rabbits, always present, even more so now. And, of course, my long love affair with horses saved me when I started riding a friend’s young gelding every week. I read about elephants walking down deserted urban streets, baboons taking over a city, deer, elk and bear showing up more freely with people out of their way. The air was becoming clean again with so little traffic to pollute it, and nature, for just a moment, was reasserting herself.” The solo exhibition will encircle the gallery’s 10,000-square-foot ground floor, immersing viewers in Roberts’ densely layered, nature-inspired universe.
Holly Roberts was born in Boulder, CO, and earned an M.F.A. from Arizona State University, Tempe, in 1981. Her work is nationally and internationally exhibited and has been published in four monographs: Holly Roberts: Untitled 50, published by the Friends of Photography; Holly Roberts: Works 1989-1999 and Holly Roberts: Works 2000-2009 published by Nazraeli Press, and Holly Roberts: 33 Years, published by the Griffin Museum of Photography in tandem with Roberts’ one person retrospective of the same name. A dedicated teacher as well as a prolific artist, she has had a profound effect on a community of artists around the country. She continues to live and work in the Southwest.
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