Lonnie Holley

From the venue:

UTA Artist Space Atlanta is pleased to present the inaugural exhibition at UTA Artist Space Atlanta, The Eyes Were Always On Us, a presentation of new work by internationally renowned artist, filmmaker and musician Lonnie Holley. The exhibition, on view from March 23 until April 29, is a homecoming for Holley, who has called Atlanta home since 2010.

Born in Alabama, Holley has devoted his life to the practice of improvisational creativity. His art and music, born out of struggle, hardship, but perhaps more importantly, out of furious curiosity and biological necessity, have manifested themselves in drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, performance and sound. Holley’s sculptures are constructed from found materials in the oldest tradition of African American sculpture. Objects, already imbued with cultural and artistic metaphor, are combined into narrative sculptures that commemorate places, people, and events.

Although painting has been integral to his forty-year career as a visual artist, The Eyes Were Always On Us consists of works exclusively made with spray paint, oil sticks, gesso and acrylic on canvas, paper and quilt. Holley credits the solitude and reflection offered during two recent fellowships–The Hambidge Center in North Georgia and the Elaine de Kooning House in East Hampton–as the impetus to return to painting at a large scale. The new works on view at UTA Artist Space are simultaneously improvised and charged with layers of meaning, unmistakable from the assemblage works Holley has created since the 1980s. Changing with the Seasons, a new work painted on stretched quilt, similarly gives new life to a previously discarded material. Paying homage to his mother, who was a quiltmaker, and ancestors who labored to pick cotton and were forgotten, Holley uses quilts as both a commemorative and healing medium.