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Holly Albright studied at St. Martin’s College of Art and Design in London where she honed her artistic and sartorial skills while living in the cultural capital of Western Europe. Going on to work for and with Alexander McQueen, Julien McDonald, Giles Deacon, Emilio de la Mora and Pam Hogg, she couldn’t fail to be influenced by London’s pervasive music, fashion and art scenes, all of which continue to inspire her painting and other work today. Simultaneously, adding to those influences was another side of the city — a side which can be found in all cities — the shady characters of the nightlife underworld, the nightclubs and the dive bars where she bore witness to the dark desires of magnetic yet narcissistic strangers — the shadowy glamour of hidden social scenes, which all too often appeared seedy in the cold reality of daylight. The interchange between the sexes — the yin and the yang, the ego and the id, the smoke and mirrors — all of this fascinated Holly. Her inner world has been endlessly sculpted by her own personal experiences, all of which continue to influence everything she creates. Holly’s pieces are stream-of-consciousness dreamscapes — hallucinatory experiences that evoke the genius and vision of Klimt, Schiele, Picasso, Dali, Magritte, Basquiat and LaChapelle; their trademark styles are imprinted on and recognized by the collective psyche — high art meets Pop art. Hitchcock, 1990s supermodels, Gatsby, film noir, pulp fiction, Betty Page, Louise Brooks, taxidermy, Gil Elvgren’s pin-up girls, Blade Runner, burlesque — they all seem to infiltrate the imagery of Holly’s work, whether she’s producing illustrations or large-scale painting. |