Polar Blog

Holly Overton.

New York , New York

Interests: “There is no where in the world I am more comfortable than rocking on my grandparents porch swing during a warm month, feeling a soft breeze on my neck and talking to my grandfather while we watch the hummingbirds coast over the garden.”

Holly works hard at her art. She creates strong connections between nature and childhood, and as someone who grew up in a big city, I really appreciate her ‘intuitive’ connections between life and nature. We should all get back to living with nature, not against it. So in a time when Iphones are the latest rage, and digital photography and technique are appreciated over substance, we at Polar would like to present her work as a breath of fresh air. The colors are lovely, the textures reminiscent of a film generation long gone (but not forgotten).

We’ll soon be featuring her drawings in our published version of Polar, but, as always, we’d like her to speak for herself:

“The two sets of photographs are recorded exaltation with my friends and family in my hometown of Manteo, North Carolina. They were shot with a disposable camera, like a happy candid moment in time. I later merged the two photographs using Photoshop, by copying and stamping floral areas from one photograph onto the other.

Usually, I use my photography only as reference for drawing or collage. But, in the case, the images are too strong to need imitation. My work comes from an appreciation of landscape and all things found when exploring nature; as found through a nostalgia for childhood.

I merged the photographs together as an intuitive decision.Within my creative process, I make connections and relationships between objects and images, whether it be spacial, color, texture, conceptual, etc. This is how I flow from one thing to the next.

Building connections is my favorite element of the creative process. It is one thing to draw something spectacular, yet another thing to make it relate to something else and have a presence, or real reason to be there.

For me, there is a connection between appreciating nature and nostalgia as they are one in the same. As a child, I contented myself with exploring the little things; blades of grass on the ground, pine cones, snails, climbing trees… imagining a far off Native American village that once may have inhabited my backyard, for example.

As when making art in the present, I revert back to this childlike state of mind, of being curious and quizzical with my materials and ideas.”

You can contact Holly via her website at www.hollyoverton.com