Holly Barrett is an interdisciplinary artist working primarily in ceramic and illustrative arts. She received her BFA from Ohio University, Athens, with concentrations in Ceramics and Painting & Drawing. Holly has since participated in Red Lodge Clay Center’s ASPN Residency, completed a Post-Bacc Residency at the Morean Center for Clay (via Western Michigan University), and spent a summer as Residency Liaison at the Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts. She is currently based in Cincinnati, Ohio as a long-term Artist in Residence at Queen City Clay and was recently named one of Ohio’s Emerging Artists 2023 by the Ohio Craft Museum. 

In my practice, I emphasize the continuous and non-linear nature of how people and stories develop over time and are perceived. As individuals, we are each the sum of many parts, illustrating our lives with traumas, travels, stories, and traditions. We have the authority to edit, rewrite, and rearrange our priorities. Memoirs and biographic work create a space dedicated to moments that mean something to us– moments we choose to remember. And the language of storytelling, written or visual, epic or short, is a way of saying “Here, this is how I’m passing a part of me onto you.” I integrate illustration with ceramics as a way to convey narrative. The question of how form and surface inform one another, and to what extent, is a source of joy and exploration. I use thrown vessels, multi-part installations, and architectural adornment as canvases for layered imagery to emphasize themes of memory & story-telling, community, and perceived value.