“Afloat” Image. Ceres Gallery. New York. Solo Show.
Color blue. I have a preference for it. Doesn’t mean it works with paintings/collages just because I like it.
This, to me, expresses the climate changes going on now. Water, canyons, floods, tsunamis. I like the color blue here with the light dull orange.
“Afloat” Image. Ceres Gallery. Solo Show. New York.
This collage contains a huge flower in the foreground, in front of a very large crowd in an outside environment. Like an outdoor concert. The texture of the flower is similar to the “texture” of the crowd, linking them in an almost indecipherable mass of dots.
I have no idea how to comment on this, other than to say I love how two disparate subjects could look alike and form an abstraction.
More later on how this idea formed the making of these collages, rather than my focusing on the eerie, sometimes funny subject matter that does come up.
“Afloat” Image. Ceres Gallery. New York Solo Show.
This one is shown in its exhibition frame. I am back in town and have access to all my photos. This was intentionally done as a “Close-Encounters” thing. The traveling lights in the distance. About to land.
These collages evolved from the whimsical idea of cutting up magazines and seeing what I could do with no paint involved, as I was accustomed to using. I did one, then two. I had so much fun just “playing” (always hating that expression when it comes to artwork, because art is hard WORK.)
My solo show loomed ahead and subject matter was undecided.
I had been working on a video. I worried about focusing only on the video for the show. Working under pressure is never good. And doing animation is meticulous. Being meticulous and being nervous don’t go together.
I decided to continue with these collages, thinking “Oh, I am having so much FUN, it will be easy to RELAX and do them….100 of them….for the solo show.”
I should not admit this, but looking back, I really don’t think making them was FUN. All principles of doing art were involved. And certainly, when I hit 26, after slaving away, the rest seemed to be a torturous number. Looming in the distance.
Much like these space crafts about to land.
Ceres Gallery. New York. Solo Show. Studio shot of one of my 100 collages.
The photo of this collage is one I also took in my studio. Right after I did it. Solo Show. Ceres Gallery. New York. Jacque Cousteau in a glass.
This is an unframed collage from my solo show “Afloat”. Ceres Gallery. New York. Photo taken in my studio just after I finished it. My love of water. Joyful feeling of the man in front of the wave. Reminds me of childhood times in the summer.
“Afloat.” Solo show. Ceres Gallery, New York. This one was one of my first collages In the series. I used the wrappers from cotton balls to make some of the bubbles. I think this one works well inside the square in a circular way. Your eye goes around and returns to the laughing baby. Compositionally, probably my best.
“Afloat” image. Solo show. Installation at Ceres Gallery, New York. This image is “taking place” in the air. Buildings in the sky floating upward, surrounded by birds.
“Afloat” image. Ceres Gallery, New York. My solo show. I am building a new studio and have been dealing with sub-contractors now for two months. While this is going on, I see the new blank walls and I feel the need to reflect on work completed.
An artist’s show unearths the artist’s psyche. Changes the person. Especially a solo show as massive as my show, “Afloat.”
This piece includes a tornado. Striking an innocent village in the snow. Blue sky. Another one of my collages cut from magazines. (“Afloat” used no computer imagery or manipulation.) Perhaps I choose to talk about change and beginning anew because of this image. And, of course, what is going on in my life.
“Afloat” image. My solo show in New York at Ceres Gallery. This is one of 100 images that floated over the gallery walls. This piece, based on land, places a giant ring, twinkling and encircling a small house. The sparkles get along better with the sky and the field, texturally, and the house is happy to be safe.
Hollis Hildebrand-Mills 