HOLLIS BROWN THORNTON

I work with the objects of my past, from pop culture to family photos, and fragment this imagery, similar to memory fragmentation. I erase the identities in family photos. I reproduce pieces of the past in markers, paint, and a printmaking process, in a balance of imprecision while attempting to maintain a level of control, similar to memory's attempts to reproduce events in an inherently flawed and personal way. Sometimes I pixelate these images, representing the simplified way the past exists in memory and the digital nature of contemporary life. My two fixations are memory and change, documenting my lifetime, beginning in the mid-70s. The 80s were my elementary and middle school years. Then the high school and college years of the 90s. In the 00s I was suddenly an adult artist attempting to make it on my own. The 10s are a balance of being a productive artist while also being a husband and parent. Bright colors. Max Headroom. The Incredible Hulk. Blade Runner. The Goonies. R.E.M. Boards of Canada. Unsolved Mysteries. The NES and early phases of digital technology. The early days of the internet. Small personal things and huge events like 9-11 and the Challenger explosion. Using memory and change as my main themes, I'm primarily concerned with mortality. Not the fear of death, but the fact that we know our time is limited. It makes us do a variety of things. Some of us try to hold onto and perhaps collect the past. Some come up with stories and explanations that deal with these circumstances, creating ideologies and belief systems. Some of us make paintings and drawings that document and attempt to understand the many pieces of what we are. I work out of my warehouse studio in Aiken, SC. Father to Leona the Lioness and married to Amanda, the one and only THORN & FINCH. INSTAGRAM: www.instagram.com/hollisbrownthornton FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/hollisbrownthornton TUMBLR: www.hollisbrownthornton.tumblr.com FLICKR: www.flickr.com/people/hollisbrownthornton