Holly Perez

IGNORANT THREADS

Jan 21 – Feb 3, 2024

A number of obvious distinctions exist between the typical storefront window display and the humble backyard

clothesline: dream vs reality, new vs used, universal vs individual. Holly Perez’s Window Dressing installation,

Ignorant Threads, explores the paradoxical ambiguities that hover between these distinct polarities. A string of

flannel shirts spans the entire length of the window display, each clipped to a rope clothesline stretched between

makeshift poles held up by simple cement bricks. Each flannel shirt contains a boldly-painted phrase, written in

white house paint, exemplifying past stereotypes, judgements, and ignorant comments hurled at, and projected

onto, the artist, and many other women as well. For Perez, as a brown-skinned Chicana woman working to escape

the molds of what it is to be feminine, these flannels act as a kind of skin; skin that has taken on the role of the

protector, absorbing those painful verbal blows.

Holly Perez is a multimedia artist using her own real-life experiences of trauma as a semiotic framework to explore issues of cultural toxicity,

in particular within her own community, including alcoholism, abuse, and excessive consumption. Arguments and conversations become

fodder for confrontational reflections on issues that plague society, while objects, textures, and colors operate as stand-ins for familiar

situations in need of unpacking. Her artwork seeks to create a physical and mental safe space not just for herself, but for any that can relate

to her experiences. Perez holds a degree from Mt. San Antonio College, a BFA from Cal State Fullerton in Drawing and Painting, and a MFA

from Claremont Graduate University. She currently serves as faculty at Santa Monica College and Long Beach College, and as an Art Leader

at the dA Center for the Arts in Pomona.