INFORMATION :::::::::: Artist Interviewing Artist, December 7, 2007

Tim Lane: What are your favorite materials to work with?
HBT: In terms of the actual working/making experience, drawing and erasing, as well as the scrubbing aspect of my transfer process. And being out taking photographs... I prefer physical, moving work, as opposed to the stationary aspects [reading/research, computer work].

Tim Lane: What artists are you inspired by?
HBT: Artists I know, both personally and online, are by far my biggest influence... with the famous or historic artists, though influential, you only know them from a distance. They include: Twombly, Barney, Miranda July, David Gordon Green, Rothenberg, Basquiat, Kerry James Marshall, Hirst, Nicolas Roeg, Kubrick, Johns, Rauschenberg, New York School Abstract Expressionists, Schnabel, Mark Bradford, Warhol, Wesselmann.

Tim Lane: Tell us about your educational background. Do you have formal training in art?
HBT: I studied art at the University of South Carolina... I was there as a business major [my family owns an old insurance business], but I changed to studio art half way through my junior year.... with the loss of credit hours, I stayed and studied there, in a small yet resourceful art department.

Tim Lane: When did you decide to pursue art?
HBT: Really at the time I changed to studio art in college. Once I made the decision, I've never questioned the idea. My family is supportive, which makes this type of career much more manageable.

Tim Lane: Is there anything else you would like to tell us about your background in regards to how your art has evolved?
HBT: Well, the majority of the old imagery I use comes from family photos, so the imagery of growing up in the late 70s and 80s in the South is there. But, in general, growing up in South Carolina, that environment is very important, especially the drive from where I grew up to my family's lake house, seeing those rural, decaying areas, that had a significant impact. The South has so many offensive, clichéd, boring stereotypes. A main reason for moving back to South Carolina was after watching David Gordon Green's "George Washington", which is an extremely honest representation of how I see this area. It is a very beautiful, almost perfect place. Perhaps it is why it is the most conservative state in the country, people here don't want things to change.

Tim Lane: This part is for you to ask yourself a question or write anything fun nonsense anything you want as long as you want.
HBT: Halo Ghost Full Moon Pure Storms White Empty Apollo. Twister Color for the fireworks.

Tim Lane: Can you go into detail about your artistic process? How do you begin a piece? When do you know that a piece is finished?
HBT: I honestly have no organized process. I constantly have work in progress, images laying around, drawings, not messy really, but not a system, at all.... but I am very organized. As for finishing something, it is finished when I stop working on it. I could be dead tomorrow, so everything is finished when I'm away from it... I just see it all as a constant state of potential.... with my work that is completely transfer, it is very much hit or miss, so those have craftsmanship concerns...

Tim Lane: How does contemporary life impact your creative practice?
HBT: Contemporary technology is very important [computers, scanners, Photoshop, photocopy machines], especially being in the South, staying involved in contemporary life via the internet and other new forms of media is unique.

Tim Lane: Tell us more about the philosophy behind your art. What motivates you to create?
HBT: Largely, my interest is in the way that we deal with being temporary, such as continual flux and death. That makes us ask questions "Who am I?" "Where did I come from?" "What will happen to me when I die?" and we answer those questions differently due to what we know don't know, as well as the belief of the cultures into which we are born. And our answers at always dictated by our limited perspective, such as being born into a culture with a dominant religion or mythology or scientific belief. Fundamentally, this is my main interest and the motivator for why I make the work and why I use the type of images and materials and words I use. And potential, the idea that everything is constantly in a state of construction or decay, but ultimately, potential, the idea of something in continual formation, it is the optimistic perspective. And influence, how we become what we are or believe what we believe, like radiating lines from some unknown origin.

Tim Lane: Why did you choose to work in the medium(s) that you use?
HBT: I like photography because it is a way we try to stop time, to make something last forever. There is beauty in that. I'm however interested in destabilizing that frozen moment, to emphasize instability or unrest, so I ultimately erase areas, turn the image sideways, add drawing that is influenced by or completely uncontrolled by the image in the photo. As for computers, they allow these manipulations and I suppose, in terms of potential, computer work doesn't have the historical associations of painting. The transfers allow me to transfer the computer images to the traditional stretched canvas or paper. My main materials are carbon [from the black transfer pigment] calcium [in the gesso and marble dust] and water [used to remove the paper from the transfers].... these are also a human's main ingredients.

Tim Lane: What are you working on at this time?
HBT: The continuation of painting/drawing/photography combination I've described. I am writing a story that corresponds with events in the work, a narrative description of how certain symbols I use relate to my experiences or how I intend for these symbols to be interpreted. I am working on a project with old VHS cassettes my family had growing up. Right now a friend is producing a publication with the theme "Bad Things" and I'm doing a piece I'll likely call "Water Wars", an idea that relates to the potential of wars being fought over water if extreme global warming occurs. And getting Barrack Obama elected president... well, I'm not directly working on that, but hoping.

Tim Lane: What is your studio like? Can you go into detail about your studio routine? Do you work in silence-- listen to music?
HBT: The studio I currently have is a warehouse building where I also live.... I really have no routine, I have my living space where I do computer work and then the exterior warehouse space that I do the painting and transfers. It is broken up between these to spaces, just depending on whether I want to do physical or stationary work. I'm almost always listening to music.

Tim Lane: Do you have any upcoming exhibits? Where readers can view your work? OR .COMS
HBT: Linda Warren Gallery in Chicago, IL, Mary Pauline Gallery in Augusta, GA, and if ART Fine Art in Columbia, SC, as well as my website www.hollisbrownthornton.com

Tim Lane: Favorite word?
HBT: Leo

Tim Lane: Least favorite word?
HBT: Bush