Hollie Johns
Visual Arts: Crafts, Functional and/or Decorative, Illustration, Mixed Media, Murals, Painting, Sculpture, Works on paper; Floral Design and Garden Installation
Hollie Johns has been a practicing artist for 22 years, professionally. Her art has always been strongly influenced by the natural world around her, but more recently she states ” I have felt an increasing need to draw attention and appreciation to this beautiful earth that so many of us take for granted. Working in local urban gardens and creating murals about CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder/Bees) has had a big influence on me”.
Her passion for nature and animals was instilled early on, and growing up she expressed this passion through art. She went on to attend the Maryland Institute College of Art where she gained a BFA in general fine arts, with a focus on photography and illustration. Following art school, her plans to be a children’s book illustrator shifted when she was offered an opportunity to take over an art gallery with over 100 artists from her high school art teacher. Hollie had never painted, other than her foundation oil class in college, but she picked up a brush and some craft store acrylics, and has been painting ever since.
Her art exudes an honesty that speaks to her sensitivity towards expressing the relationship between the man-made and natural worlds. Within her technique, which is mostly self-taught, she makes changes based on her own whims, and the physicality of the paint. While her art holds private undertones based on observation and personal memories, they are presented to the viewers as avenues which they can interpret in their own way.
