Kyle Holland
Hunted

Media: Stenciled cotton pulp on abaca base sheets, screenprinting, and letterpress printing. 

Artist Statement:
"Hunted" was inspired by the sensory deprivation and daunting fear of the unknown that is experienced by those who brave the wilderness at night. Several color shifts beyond a recurring wooded area represent how our eyes adjust to nightfall. It is darkness that distorts our visual sense and conceals who or what could be around. The protagonist has been omitted in this book to make the landscape the force that haunts and shapes the viewer, just as it does me.

Most of the images in this book were created using blowouts which involve the use of stencils to cover up and protect portions of freshly formed sheets of paper while the exposed areas are blown away with a hose. The result is a hazy, dark form reminiscent of what we see when our vision is impaired. These sheets were couched on top of sheets of overbeaten abaca, evoking the sound of leaves crackling underfoot as the pages turn.

The text that was chosen to narrate "Hunted" is excerpted from Paul Willems’ "Cathedral of Mist." In this short story, darkness has a mysterious, spiritual quality and is the setting in which inanimate objects come alive through personification. Absence and presence are suggested simultaneously, leaving the reader to question whether or not they are alone.

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Biography

Kyle Holland is a visual artist who was born and raised in Memphis, TN where he earned his BFA in Printmaking from Memphis College of Art in 2012. He received his MFA in Book Arts + Printmaking at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, PA in 2019.

His work has been exhibited internationally, including noted shows at the Robert C. Williams Paper Museum in Atlanta, GA; The Morgan Conservatory in Cleveland, OH;  å in New York City; Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN; and the King St. Stephen Museum in Hungary. His work is in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Nevada Museum of Art, The Center for å Arts in New York City, Yale University, Rhode Island School of Design, and UC Berkeley among others. 

Holland currently lives and works in Tuscaloosa, AL where he continues his artistic practice in addition to teaching in the MFA Book Arts Program at The University of Alabama.