“Upon the Horizon” 

Statement by William Schwaller

Troy Holleman references alchemy often while discussing the conceptual origins of his latest work. Even though, all art making flirts with alchemy for its conversion of raw material into products of new meaning, Holleman’s work goes further, embracing pseudo-scientific experimentation with materials in a quest for products of existential significance.
Materiality is key to an alchemist, yet Holleman’s goal is less the conversion of raw material into precious object, than the creation of immersive and evocative experiences. Lately, research has examined the material properties of salt and water, in tandem with their symbolic associations. Both are necessary for (human) life, yet both can corrode and destroy organic and inorganic materials. Using these mundane, ubiquitous materials in the facture of his work, Holleman builds off Pagan and Nordic cultures’ associations of salt and water within their spiritual and ritual alchemic practices. Salt protects and heals while water is a medium of cleansing and transition. Allying his work with the occult or ritualistic, Holleman looks to produce meaning out of the alternative philosophies and relations to the material and immaterial world held by such groups.
This research lends Holleman’s work an air of Romanticism. Like the Romantics of the eighteenth century, the clarity provided by rational sources of knowledge are to be wary of, while myth, magic, or even alchemy are considered as alternative sources of knowledge and understanding. Romantics cater to emotion over intellect, embodied experience over compartmentalized knowledge. In this way, Holleman explores the participation and visual, aural, and haptic stimulation of the audience through a range of media and installation.