Holly George @ the Smith House

August 09th, 2010

Featured Below:
Holly George, Beneath the Surface, 2010 (left)
Cast Off, 2010 (right)
image  image

This August, the Arts Council of the Valley proudly presents Maps From Incognesia by Holly George.  This exhibition in the Smith House, 311 South Main Street, features George’s amorphous and disorienting photographs of geographical maps.

Maps From Incognesia is a photographs series in which George takes the flat, linear images usually found on maps and distorts them. The photographs of the altered maps create new lines and topography for the viewer. Georges asks the question, “What if our familiarity with map structure is stretched so far as to be on the hazy border between comfortably legible and futilely directionless, in a new space that requires active interpretation and acceptance of unreadability?” Her photographs force the viewer to abandon preconceived notions of locations and spatial relationships and to embrace imagination of a new land.

The light, ephemeral movement of George’s photographs transforms the standard four-cornered map into floating islands of disparate icons, drawing the viewer in with sensual color and form rather than the promise of clarity and answers.  The title of the exhibition evokes the same disorientation and reinvention in the photographs.  The word Incognesia refers to the breakdown of information through its derivation from the Latin incognitae—meaning “unknown” or “undiscovered”—while also recalling words such as amnesia, anesthesia and others containing the suffix nesia—Greek for “the land that swims in the sea.”  Through both the visual and literal aspects of her work, George opens up a conversation concerning the human need for borders and solidly delineated spaces, while suggesting that there is a whole world of layers and ambiguity just below our constructed surfaces. 

In May 2010, George completed an M.F.A. with a concentration in Photography from James Madison University.  She currently resides in Boston, but grew up outside of Houston, Texas, and attended Austin College on a photography scholarship.  Following the completion of her B.F.A. in Studio Art in 2005, she spent two years in New York, serving the organization Teach for America. George has also traveled extensively in Central America, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Europe, and various parts of the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean.  Coupled with her time teaching in New York, her experiences studying and traveling abroad have shaped the way she perceives her environment and influences where she directs her lens. 

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