Content for this site is Holly McClellan’s water & liquid artwork. Underlying themes are environmental with links to consumerism.

MORE detail & context about work on this site.

The exploration of water started with the Iris Group exhibition FLUID. Mediums for the show included photography, sculpture, painting and mixed media. Holly McClellan’s work for FLUID were photo-based visual studies of water politics.  Topics included access, pollution and toxicity.

Later in 2009 a second version of the show was produced for the Agnes Jamieson Gallery.    FLUID 2 was a continuation and re-exploration of themes by IRIS members. Holly’s work for FLUID 2 was inspired by the green consumer movement.  At the time there were a number of companies being called out for green washing.  Her work for FLUID 2 consisted of photographic studies and explorations of those themes using consumer grade laundry detergents.

Later works on this website show Holly’s visual interests extended into liquid chemicals.  Particle attraction and the vocabulary used to describe chemicals inspired some of the painterly photo works she created for an exhibition titled WhiteOut.

There is no third instalment of FLUID, but some of the content from her previous water studies for that show continue to inspire.  A new interest and thematic direction for Holly’s water-based work is resiliency and rejuvenation.  The themes Holly explored while creating work for FLUID & FLUID 2 helped serve as preparation for Once Upon Water, 2017.  Photographic & mixed media studies involving seaweed were conducted prior to the residency in Pico.

Work from the residency in Pico, Azores took shape in an unexpected direction. A less mixed media approach was used.  States of being, unexpectedly appeared in Holly’s final works titled Shallow Views.  Instead of resiliency, consumerism was the major influence and inspiration.  Using natural seaweed and the weather conditions in Pico, the final works are colourful and playful.  Consumer packaging with it’s sophisticated colour palettes and glitzy designs, further inspired the final works.  At the end of the residency a small show was mounted in a cultural municipal building.

Other works from Shallow Views were presented and re-imagined for UnNatural History.   Lightboxes were fabricated.  UnNatural looking beauty, created from the natural was on display.

When the opportunity presents itself, new studies of aquatic life will continue.