Greg Holland Art

Artist Statement

I’m continuing to explore relationships between people and their environments.  I like creating images where faces and figures emerge from or recede into the background, and I often wonder, how do we know when we’ve become one with our surroundings?   The portrait is a favorite subject of mine; each face and figure unique.  As a photographer, most of my knowledge and experience has been self taught, through trial and error, play, accidents, and experimenting.  Since I have a BFA in painting, a lot of how I see the world is not so much through a lens.  I want to create photos that don’t appear to be photos, but rather look like paintings.  Ironically, where I find my lens often directed is to actual paint itself; layers of color, re-emerging again, pealing, through weathered, rusty layers.  And to things like a car seat deteriorating; unfolding, revealing it’s layered textures, slowly over time.  These images then become the backdrops for my portraits, and the face, a life and layer to yet another potential story.  In the process of making my art, I enjoy playing with interactions between people and elements such as color, texture, line, and form.  As I play and create, I begin to think about our inner connectedness to our environment.  How does our relationship with our environment change how we’re perceived?  What transformations occur in our environment as a result of our actions?  When things and beings are juxtaposed, what questions or emotions arise as a result of their relationship?  And can we confront our questions and emotions?  Or would that require a shift in perspective?