Hollis Brown Thornton Q+A

1. Hi Hollis. Where do you live? What do you like about it?

I live in Aiken, SC, which is also where I grew up. I realized I physically need the climate in the South while living in Chicago. There is all kinds of plant and animal and bug activity during the warm and hot times of the year, just a general sense of vitality, that is motivating. But it is mainly the heat, being hot, sweating, spending 7 months out of the year wearing only shorts and flip flops. I’m just very productive in those conditions.

Chunk

2. How do you come up with the titles for your pieces?

I use basic description titles, like VHS, for the more direct work. When I need something more open ended, such as a loose thematic association, I have a file with hundreds of potential titles, collected from all over the place, organized in different categories. When I want one of these more ambiguous titles, I’ll go through these titles and find the best fit. But the titles are very important. I’ll spend weeks or months at times before I settle on certain titles.

The Continents Are Large Areas of Crust that Make Up the Solid Surface of the Earth

Cy Twombly, Peter Doig, Matthew Barney, Takashi Murakami, Basquiat, Born to Run, R.E.M.‘s first 10 albums, Music Has the Right to Children, The Wonder Years, Svetlana Boym’s “The Future of Nostalgia”, 1980s style, Arrested Development, running, carrot juice, Ray-Ban Aviators with yellow lenses.

VHS

4. Why is sharing/repurposing important for art?

Art comes from other art. Artists build off what others have done before them conceptually, technically, and creatively. I think that is the main importance of sharing. Repurposing is important because you have to use things in your environment. The stuff around you, from pop culture, even if it is trademarked or intellectual property, it is part of you now, you’ve been saturated with it. And if, among your goals, you want to say “This is what it was like to be alive in my time.”, then some of that stuff from culture, that you didn’t initially create, has to be included.

Miami Vice

5. When were video games coolest?

I’m not able to play new games often, but I follow the industry and new games are just so innovative. Their rapid evolution, the way they present interactive adventures, the level of realism, their general scope.….. in terms of engaging, memorable, unique experiences, the new stuff is fascinating. But COOLEST, the simplicity of game graphics in the 8-bit era, those clunky images made up of individual and relatively large pixels, its a lot like punk rock, the primitive simplicity and the ruthless difficulty of the 8-bit era games, I think that will always have an almost untouchable cool.

Nicodemus

Hollis Brown Thornton