UK based artist Holly Hendry creates a sculptural realm in which the visitors of her rather dystopian world can see a symbiotic union of the micro and macroscopic world. Up and close, a visual presentation of what lies below. Her work digs below the surface and exhibits that which is buried, hidden, out of thought.
A graduate from the Royal College of Art, Holly has gained fair traction with shows at White Rainbow in London and BALTIC in Gateshead. And why wouldn’t she? Few artists have the tenacity to have a practice that makes death quite so picturesque.
Often utilizing building materials to mold her creations Holly’s work inhibits certain universal connotations referring to topics such as the dishevelled hidden universe underneath pristinely designed interior spaces or the insides of the human body.
Fabricating her scene of death and forgotten objects with the use of birch ply, cement, rawhide dog chew and soap, these elements are all masterfully held together with metallic lilac and pink tones. Despite the artist often remarking in interviews that she is uncertain as to whether her materials tie her pieces together; I am here to throw that statement out of the window and may it never be uttered again. Holly’s pastel colour palette, which meets elements such as light woods and pristine whites, fall on the viewer’s eyes with ease and concurrent poise.
Holly’s sculptural plane can be described as having a preoccupation with what is below us, thus granting Holly the title as a sort of sculptural archaeologist, and she pertains a fascination with the micro world. This micro world may be in fact shown to you on a larger than life scale. Perhaps it is a model of plant layers or layers of skin. Organic shapes are designed to Holly’s will and we see the world in a way that is not truly possible.
‘Wrot’ is a piece that has drawn me to this artist. Filling a single room, the cross section of green, blue and grey is given definition by stray bone forms and nails. This display is marked off by three bubble gum pink walls. Looming above the podium are three white structures, creating an illusion of a regimented above and shambolic below.
Physically her work dramatizes the variation of surface and plane. With a harrowing shift between macro and micro objects and spaces visitors are able to examine for themselves impressions of various objects and bodies. Holly’s work is successful in dramatizing various aspects of the circle of life and presenting it with allure and a theatre like quality.
