Familiar Objects
Karen Hollingsworth began painting wildlife and portraits and then scenes of open windows and billowing curtains. “I love to create paintings that evoke a sense of the familiar,” she says. For her next exhibition at Principle Gallery in Charleston, South Carolina, the familiar includes paper bags, comfortably worn suitcases and a violin.
She and her husband, James Neil Hollingsworth, are always “on the prowl for interesting objects” and often find objects on eBay—she looks for pieces with texture and he looks for the shinier precision-made pieces. “Every once in a while I’ll steal one of his props,” she admits.
Her familiar objects are accompanied by living things—ladybugs, grasshoppers, birds, chipmunks, lizards. “My sister has a huge array of birdfeeders,” she says, “and my brother in law is a photographer, so I have a huge collection of images to choose from.”
In Duet #5, she has chosen an old violin and cropped it to the top of the neck and its scroll with the black pegs used to tune the strings. She has added a bird, musing about the two singing a duet. “If you add a live creature to a solitary object, it brings life into that object,” she explains. “It creates something completely different.”
In Couples Retreat, two birds sit on an old suitcase and a makeup case. “It’s all about a feeling I get when I
look at an old suitcase or an old box wrapped up in brown paper. My curiosity makes me want to open them,” she says. “With old objects, time stands still. The things people have used are infused with humanity. They have a life of their own. It’s like painting a portrait. The worn objects reflect who we are and the more worn they are the more the viewer can find in them.
“I get very excited when I put together a composition,” she continues. “When I get an idea I set the object in the natural light from a window and start shooting photographs. I then go to my computer and adjust the image. Then I come up with what kind of creature would go with it, to see what brings out the best in the object. It brings it to life.”
Her exhibition opens April 3 and continues through April 30.
Principle Gallery 125 Meeting Street • Charleston, SC 29701 • (843) 727-4500 • www.principlegallery.com