HOLLY KUHL - TEXTILE FINE ARTIST

As a way of seeking what constitutes the divide between decoration and function, my paintings layer fictitious patterns over the "-real-" or premade. Found material provides a visual noise, a narrative in constant optical confrontation to the shapes and bodies placed over top. Subjects often in recumbent pose, afford brief stability and comfort, as tensions build across what is worn, what is constructed as space, and where colors operate in relation to the domestic trends of functional textiles, or as formal devices in traditional artmaking.  My aim is to find pleasure in material, in physical possibilities and in limitations.

I think a lot about the relationship of craft and [versus] fine art. How does pressed silk communicate sex and labor, when sat beside a roughed denim? Is recycled tablecloth of polyester and plasticky linen, grand enough to carry my treasured pigments and oil paint? Where do associations of gender and value breed themselves into a pattern’s history?

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To honor the material, is to utilize it, and I do so maternally; if a portrait or art object is inherently precious, then my work seeks to include and thus elevate a scrap of fabric. I search for designs that will relate to the subject, but that is not to say I attempt complete seamlessness or balance. Refined areas neighbor those that break from the rule. Colors do not always "-match-" and patterns do not always repeat. I like playing tricks with structure, believability, and familiarity in ways that require the viewer to question what is present and what is important. The work satisfies a need to make, find, and concentrate. 

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