Holly Roberts: Straight Photographs?

Interview by Jonathan Blaustein. Images appear after the interview. View Holly Roberts’ Straight Photographs portfolio on Flash Flood.

Holly Roberts is a mixed-media artist based just north of Albuquerque in Corrales, New Mexico. Her work has been exhibited internationally and published in monograph form by the Friends of Photography and Nazraeli Press. She currently shows her work at Zane Bennett Gallery in Santa Fe, Etherton Gallery in Tucson, Ruth Morpeth Gallery in New Jersey and at the Edelman Gallery in Chicago. She is well known for painting on photographs and incorporating photographs into assemblage paintings. For Issue 2 of Flash Flood, she agreed to publish a portfolio of the never-before-seen “straight” photographs that she uses in her finished work.

Your symbology seems to reference dreams, fairy tales, and folklore. Are you influenced by any or all of these?

I’d like to think that I am inventing or tapping into another kind of fairy tale, folklore or myth, stories that are evolving out of our current culture and time, all of which come from my direct response to the environment, the culture, and the deep collective unconscious. When I’m working, I am involved in a kind of conscious dreaming, following the lead of my unconscious self.

You received your MFA from Arizona State. Do you see any significant differences between New Mexico and Arizona?

Arizona is wealthier, and more conservative. It also has much more of a Sonoran desert culture as opposed to our high desert one. It’s intolerably hot in some parts (Phoenix) in the summer, and they are moving ahead of us in terms of their public art and transportation.

Does living in New Mexico impact your choice of subject matter?

I was recently in Virginia doing an artist-in-residence, and my images changed significantly because what was around me was so different. The landscapes were full of trees, bushes, and vines, the kind of landscape I’m not used to seeing in New Mexico. Culturally, the strong Hispanic and Native American influences have had a real impact on how I see things. However, I found that even when the photographic images that I used were different, the underlying statement of my work was the same.

You and I gave an artist talk together this past June. You mentioned that you were now incorporating pieces of digicam photos into paintings, instead of painting on photographs. What precipitated that change in your process?

(I’m assuming by digicam you mean a digital camera?) In 2004 I stopped working for a year. During that time I learned digital technology; how to use Photoshop, a scanner, digital cameras, etc. and when I was ready to work again, I found that the way I wanted to work wasn’t what I had done previously. The old well was dry, and it was time for me to drill a new one. With the help of all of the new digital technology that I had learned, and by switching from oil to acrylic, I was able to move ahead and find a very different way of expressing myself.

You agreed to show some of your source material photographs in this issue of Flash Flood. Do you consider these images to be art by themselves?

Yes and no, with a bigger emphasis on the no. I think they are really wonderful images, but I don’t take them thinking of them as the endpoint, but rather as means to an end (using them in my painted combination pieces). I often feel that the successful pieces come as much from luck as they do by intention.

I saw that you were once in a show at Etherton Gallery with Joel Peter Witkin. His work seems far more graphic than yours. What was it like to see your work in that context?

Joel had his work on one side of the room, and I had mine on the other, so the two didn’t really have much to do with each other. It was interesting being in a show with someone whose work was “darker” than mine since I usually hold that title.

Do you think you’ll ever do a project of “straight” photographs?

I would like to think that I would, but it’s pretty overwhelming. If I were a “straight” photographer, I would have been editing the good work from the bad all these years, and I’ve never really done that. There is almost too much of it to consider.

Are you interested in painting without using photography at all?

I always start a piece with the painting first, and I don’t stop until I have a painting that I feel very strongly about; and often, they are really lovely things. However, like the straight photos, they are also a means to an end. Sometimes I have to cover or knock back a very strong painting because it’s too much for the photographic info that goes on top. So, I think the answer to your question is no. But I do think of myself as primarily a painter, secondarily a photographer.

What kind of work influences you?

For a while now I have been drawn to folk art, but I also love certain abstract art, and am always looking at figurative work, seeing how people solve the same kinds of problems that I come up against.

Do you have any favorite photographers?

David Hockney, Lori Nix, Roger Ballen, Emmet Gowin, Gary Winogrand, Joan Meyers. Locally, I think David Ondrik is doing some very dark and interesting things, which look deceptively simple and straightforward but aren’t at all.

Are there any overarching themes that you feel permeate your entire body of work?

Much of my work is about man’s effect on the land and the animals that inhabit it, and much of it is about the psyche and the soul, especially my portraits and narrative pieces.

Are there any particular places in New Mexico that provide inspiration?

For as long as I can remember I’ve loved those hills on the way to Abiquiu that O’keefe painted.

You’ve had a long, successful career, and have also allowed your work to evolve over time. Any advice for photographers and artists just starting out?

My youngest daughter is an artist and I find myself telling her that the three things an artist needs to be successful are talent, hard work, and the ability to present one’s work and one’s ideas well and forcefully. Perhaps least needed on that list is talent, and the one most needed is hard, hard work. The rest of all of that has to do with personal journeys and purpose/intent and where the universe wants you to go.

Do you have any upcoming exhibitions or publications we ought to know about.

I have an upcoming monograph with Nazraeli Press due out later this year or early next. It will continue from where my last book with Nazraeli left off, so it will cover the last 10 years of my work. I also have a piece at the Museum of Albuquerque in the Albuquerque Now:Fall show.

View Holly Roberts’ Straight Photographs.