We are so excited to have Bootsy Holler back in Seattle for her exhibition Nuclear Family.

Join us Thursday night, October 22nd in Seattle at wall space @ Utina for a special evening with Bootsy.

Artist Talk at 5.30 pm, Reception to follow until 8pm.

Bootsy Holler called Seattle home until 2009, when she transplanted to Los Angeles. Bootsy and I first met in 1999 in Seattle, when I worked at Glazer’s Camera, and she was working as a commercial photographer. So much has changed for both of us a over a decade later, but there has been one constant – Bootsy’s extraordinary visual exploration of  family and place.  I am thrilled to be able to represent her and to help bring this beautiful poignant body of work back home.

Holler’s Nuclear Family resonates within all of us. Bootsy’s introspective look into her own connection to family compels us to be present and inspires us to document our own connections to family and clan.  There is a certain comfort to knowing who we are and where we come from. It is in this investigation of family where Bootsy’s work engages us, invites us to learn about her and more about ourselves.

Ruby & Willie investigates the beauty and simplicity of love, loss and longing. Bootsy’s images are filled with compassion and respect, holding the responsibility for safekeeping the archive of their lifetime. Visually chronicling the home they shared, Bootsy gives us a illustrative testament to the life they built together.  showing her own connections to the people and surroundings left behind.

Ruby and Willie’s home is located at 1824 Davison, Richland, Washington. Ruby passed in 1978, leaving Willie to live alone. Willie lived in the basement and kitchen, not touching any of the rooms. Holler documents each room as if it were a museum, capturing all the details in the kitchen, living room, dining room, hallway, boys’ room, girls’ room, Ruby’s room, the downstairs TV room, and finally Willie’s basement bedroom.

Visitor shows the best of us through the iconic family photograph. Many collectors of photographs look for ephemera that intensifies our memories, and Bootsy’s creative use of constructing new family memories engages us with laughter, joy and engaging emotional connection.

Rewriting a family narrative and visual history, Visitor uses family photographs collected over decades. The Visitor is Bootsy, placing herself within the context of the photograph, freezing in place a bond between the image subject and newly created memory. Visitor is an opportunity to craft new family bonds, to a group of people that have only existed until now in photographs.

 

 

Hanford Declassified has us wander through a vast emotional landscape. Holler’s vision of the Eastern Washington exposes the skies, yet grounds us to the earth of a mysterious landscape. This seemingly blank canvas connects us to our own memories and the journey to find ourselves and our place in the world.

The story of Hanford had been a national secret, a secret that nobody fully understood until 1945, when the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Only in the wake of those 135,000 deaths did the people of Hanford begin to learn the purpose of their town: to produce the plutonium that fueled one of America’s atomic bombs. And even today most people have no idea this secret land exists.

Bootsy’s father worked for the Department of Energy for 21 years, when he retired he managed Nuclear Operations for Hanford.  As a native to this profoundly secretive and conflicted place, Holler grew up in a culture where larger truths were never known, now drawn back to the area’s many ironies, not the least of which are: the extreme beauty of the untouched land that covers an unknown and vast amount of toxic waste, a high-school mascot who symbolizes our town’s infamy (a nuclear cloud), and street names which record the legacy that led to the death of so many and which changed the course of history.

 

This beautiful small box of photographs, objects linking us to our past, and releasing us into our future. Memories and keepsakes, each of the 44 objects ties all of us to our childhood, our bonds to place and the relationship we had to our surroundings.

The photographs in Treasures are of simple and unnoticed objects from Bootsy’s mother’s home.  Objects she has known all of her 44 years. Very particular about how she likes things; every item has its place, everything has its way to be done and, as such, these things and this way became part of her life as well.

 

This visual symphony in four movements, seemingly all disparate ideas, tie together all the aspects behind the ideas and objects of clan. Bootsy’s investigation of her own place within her tribe, bringing her closer to the things as a child she never understood, and as an adult reveals the complexities of decisions made for and about her. After leaving Eastern Washington as a teenager, and returning as an adult, the wisdom gained in intervening years helps us all grow and connect to our own families, our own clans.

 

About Bootsy Holler –

Bootsy is an intuitive commercial, editorial and fine art photographer who has been shooting professionally and showing for more than 15 years. Best known for her remarkably sensitive style of portraiture she has been noticed and awarded by the Society of Photographic Journalism.

Her career as an artist started as youthful obsession with fabrics and fashion, leading into a degree in textile design. She moved into styling, art direction then started her own small design manufacture incorporating photography and in 1999 let go of them all to focus on photography as an art and trade.

From that journey, she gained three things: a devotion to craft, a deep understanding of style, and respect for the power of beauty. She quickly progressed to portraiture, gaining major professional momentum shooting musicians and bands in Seattle’s music scene of the late 1990’s. But when you look at Holler’s fine art you usually find self-portrait work or the mundane daily life we often pass by.

Focusing on the spirit of people, things, and moments, she gained a reputation for being able to communicate the intangible. That has led directly to her work with some of the most interesting personalities and brands. Today, based in Los Angeles, she works in the advertising, editorial, and fine art markets, expanding her offerings into directing. Her quest is to capture and magnify the beauty and spirit of each object or person she photographs.

 

If you would like to attend, please RSVP to the gallery. We’d love to know you will be joining us.

 

wall space @ Utina Wardroom

509 Dexter Ave North

Seattle, Washington 98109

206.330.9137