Holly grew up in Nebraska, where she received both Bachelors and Masters degrees in Art Education. She moved to Kansas City in 1982 and was an art director at Hallmark Cards for twelve years. She has taught art in numerous settings, including both public and private elementary and high schools, the University of Nebraska-Kearney, and the Kansas City Art Institute.
Holly’s artwork consists primarily of acrylic paintings and pastels. Having been an art teacher for students of all ages, backgrounds, and skill levels, she has grown comfortable with many different media and styles, but her favorite is a form of pointillism using acrylics. She counts Seurat and Van Gogh as major influences.
While active in both objective and non-objective, traditional and non-traditional work, color is always a central focus in Holly’s work. She loves looking at the world and seeing the amazing array of colors and shapes. She enjoys noticing the relationships that surround us every day, and then sharing her vision through her artwork. Her subjects come primarily from personal reference photos. Some of her apparently non-objective pieces actually start out with architectural or nature photo research.
Holly has shown her work at the Ruth E Stocksdale Gallery of Art at William Jewell College (2019) and the Norfolk (NE) Arts Center (2017). She also has ongoing exhibit relationships with ArtsKC and the Northland Exposure Artists’ Gallery, and was Featured Artist at the 2016 ArtsKC Annual Awards Luncheon.
