Hollis Brown Thornton

My work is mostly about memory and time—how images and objects remain after their original context is gone. I think of the work as a kind of residual memory: an attempt to collect and give physical form to something that can no longer be completely recovered.

I work with familiar imagery drawn from photographs, television, obsolete media, domestic interiors, and other recorded sources. Through painting, drawing, and pigment transfer, I simplify, obscure, repeat, and partially erase these images. The process functions something like memory itself—preserving certain information while allowing other parts to disappear.

I’m interested in the tension between something feeling definite and incomplete at the same time. A hard edge or recognizable object can suggest that something existed, while abrasion, erasure, and fragmentation undermine that certainty. The resulting images occupy a space between recognition and disappearance—artifacts of experiences that can never be fully reconstructed.

I received my BFA from the University of South Carolina in 1999 and live and work in Aiken, South Carolina.

1999
BFA, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2027
Candl Fine Art, Augusta, GA

2026
A Tale of Stolen Time
Gertrude Herbert Institute of Art, Augusta, GA
View Exhibition →

2018
There's Still Time
Florence County Museum, Florence, SC

2015
A Long Time Ago
Gauntlet Gallery, San Francisco, CA

2013
The Land Between Solar Systems
Linda Warren Projects, Chicago, IL

2012
Unexplained Mysteries of the Universe
AISHO MIURA ARTS, Tokyo, Japan

2009
Hollis Brown Thornton: The Geography of Space
Sumter County Gallery of Art, Sumter, SC

2008
The Earth on the Back of the Giant Turtle
Linda Warren Gallery, Chicago, IL

2007
Great Sea Creatures & the Earth on the Back of the Giant Turtle
if ART Gallery, Columbia, SC

2006
Hollis Brown Thornton
Mary Pauline Gallery, Augusta, GA

2005
Great Sea Creatures & Punica Granatum
City Art, Columbia, SC

Great Sea Creatures & Punica Granatum
Jackson Gallery & Sculpture Garden, Aiken, SC

2004
The Great Fish & Every Kind of Plant that Bears Seed
Jackson Gallery & Sculpture Garden, Aiken, SC

2002
Hollis Brown Thornton
Verdir, Chicago, IL

2001
Hollis Brown Thornton
80808 Vista Studios, Columbia, SC

Hollis Brown Thornton
Aiken Center for the Arts, Aiken, SC

2000
Hollis Brown Thornton
Galler...