BIO
Bootsy Holler is an intuitive artist who has been a working photographer for over 25 years in music, editorial, advertising and fine art. Best known for her remarkably sensitive style of portraiture, she has been noticed and awarded by the Society of Photographic Journalism and Association of Alternative News-media. Now living in Los Angeles she has focused in on fine art. Her work examines the nature of emotions, of identity and the reimagined family.
Bootsy's series Visitor was selected for Critical Mass Top 50 and her art images have appeared in numerous publications like, VOGUE, House & Garden, NPR, PDN, Lenscratch, Don’t Take Pictures, and Chinese Photographer Magazine. Her seminal work is in the permanent collection of the Grammy Museum. In 2020 she was invited to exhibit her series Without Words at the Shanghai International Photo Festival. Her work has shown at many other institutions including Fotofever in Paris, The Griffin Museum of Photography, California Museum of Photography and The Center for Fine Art Photography. Recently she was awarded Best-of-Show at a juried exhibition at the Center for Photographic Art in Carmel, CA. Recently she published her second monograph TREASURES: objects I’ve known all my life, and is currently working on a new book.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Most of all I want to show viewers the beauty in people and things they might otherwise ignore. In that sense, all my work is portraiture—an image that captures the essential personality or emotions of the subject. That happens when I make a personal connection to an environment, object, feeling or person. I take pictures of what moves me and hope the audience can feel this in my work. It can also be a projection of how I want people to see me, an ideal idea of myself.
Composition and balance are most important to me. With my background in textiles and fashion, I love to capture patterns, textures, and blocks of negative space. With color, My goal is to capture the actual emotion that color brings to a surrounding. If the environment is warm or cool to the eye, my impulse is to capture the look of that environment rather than “correcting” it. My goal is to always try to preserve the existing look and feel of a moment.
My ideas come about organically, usually from an image, drawing or personal experience that triggers a full blown project. I feel like the best art happens when you’re not thinking about “why”—just doing. The fewer restraints I put on myself the better the work. I play, plan and prepare for a shoot, but when the time comes I let my instincts guide me.