Hollis Brown, VHS. Acrylic, pigment transfer on canvas.
The painting above is from a series of VHS tape-inspired works by South Carolina-based artist Hollis Brown Thornton. “Growing up, we had a HUGE cabinet of movies dad taped off TV,” he has explained. “In the 1980s, this really was a sacred cabinet for kids. My friends would come over and go berserk finding movies to watch. Then, about 2 years ago, dad came out to the warehouse (where my studio is) and was about to throw out the hundreds and hundreds of VHS.
“It was just a shock to see these things that were so important at one time being worth nothing now, just taking up space. So there is that idea of modernity/progress/consumerism, and how technology is so quickly outdated. And how it can be difficult to let go of the past. So they are monuments to the VHS era. And the contents of the tapes is usually very funny. The passing technologies also relate to the ideas of the creation mythology, where past myths or belief systems are replaced by new ones.”
View more pieces after the jump. [via C-MONSTER]
