BRYANT HOLSENBECK

To commemorate Earth Day, now in its 50th year, GreenHill shines a light on Bryant Holsenbeck who uses discarded scraps to create sculpture and explores the impact of art on environmental stewardship.

Holsenbeck’s animal sculptures figured in the 2018 GreenHill exhibition Beauty of the Beast. The discarded scraps that are the basis of these works belie the acuteness of the artist’s eye and connection to the history of artists who portray animals. Like the works of Audubon and Martin Johnson Heade, Holsenbeck’s sculptures are meticulously crafted and offer an encounter with nature in all its otherness. A faun’s tenuous battle with gravity, inky reflections on a butterfly’s wing or a bantam hen’s command of the stage are all captured using an approach that is itself an act of hope. Through her transformation of waste materials, Holsenbeck enchants viewers who engage with her works into believing that what exists outside our doors will continue to. In Holsenbeck's words:

“As I write this, I see a hummingbird feasting on the flowers in the Rose of Sharon outside my window. This morning, I found a mouse nest in the shed where I store my art materials. I feel thankful for all the signs of wild life around me."

Of her animal sculptures Bryant Holsenbeck states: "I sketch the animals I make and sketch them again and look at pictures all the time. I am always learning a new angle, a new understanding of them as I make them. First, I make the skeletons, out of wire. Then the process is stuffing wrapping pushing, pulling stuffing wrapping un-stuffing until it looks right to me. Making these animals is never ending conversation between me and the materials. I never know how they will turn out or when they will be finished—until they are."

Wrapped Creatures Workshop

A million plastic bottles are bought around the world every minute. Through our upcoming H2O show (2021) and related community engagement initiatives, GreenHill is aiming to raise awareness and impact behaviors in support of our environment.

To that end, we are collecting 4000 clean, spiral-cut water bottles! Holsenbeck will need these to create a mammoth plastic waterfall on site.

Follow Holsenbeck's instructions provided below. Save your work for us, and become part of our future installation.

Water Bottle Cutting Demonstration

In 2010, Bryant Holsenbeck lived a full year without using single-use plastic.

When asked how she was able to make it through the year, Holsenbeck responded:

Being single, I allowed myself up to 4 dispensations. I chose my contact lenses, their packaging and the cleanser involved and the prescription drug I take for migraines which is non-generic and comes in an non-biodegradable blister pack. Everything else from chocolate chips, to yogurt, to take-out food I found a way to make, buy without plastic packaging, or do without. Often, I thought I might give up, but here is the thing–I always found a solution, another way. Many people helped me on this journey. My yoga group cheered me on and did their own experiments in using less plastic. To this day, I think everyone in that group carries a refillable water bottle and brings their own bags to the grocery store.

For a full year, I did as I intended the best way that I could. I baked, I cooked, I shopped, and I discovered ways to live with out. In the four years since, I have not been as strict with myself, but as I look back I see clearly how that year changed my habits.

Holsenbeck has been the recipient of two North Carolina Arts Council Fellowships, a Project Grant, and an NEA Arts and Learning Grant, which included a collaboration with the Chapel Hill Public Arts Commission. In 2013 she was an artist in residence at Moulin à Nef in Auvillar France.

The Last Straw
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