Skin Deep 2006

Skin Deep investigates the sensual dimension of landscape and the role of the body in shaping relationships with the natural world, suggesting a continuum of surfaces from human skin to the skin of the earth, placing the senses at the centre of the experience of place.

Shown at Span Galleries, Melbourne, Australia, 2006 and Turner Galleries, North Perth, Australia, 2007. Reconfigured as Offerings, Helen Maxwell Gallery, Canberra, Australia, 2008.

Artist Statement

The presence of the world is precisely the presence of its flesh to my flesh -
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Visible and the Invisible, trans. Alphonso Lingis, 1968.

Whilst my work continues to explore notions of “landscape” and “place” and the role of the body and memory in their cultural construction, the direction Skin Deep shifts the emphasis more particularly onto the sensory nature of human perception. Plant and animal “skins” provide textures and surfaces that aim to recuperate the sensorial dimension of experience, and the recognition of a living landscape in which we are corporeally embedded. Through this investigation I address the interdependence of the human and natural world.

From the Catalogue

Holly’s practice is bedded in quintessential women’s work where the familiar touch of textile and skin, plants and soil, is part of a nurturing life.
Bronwyn Goss, artist and environmentalist :Skin Deep catalogue essay, Turner Galleries, Perth, 2006, pp. 16 –20.

Just as science only now is beginning to make sense of the strange and unique flora of this land, we need artists like Story to help us come to grips with valuing and understanding what lies before us.
Steve Hopper, Director, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew: Skin Deep catalogue essay, Turner Galleries, Perth, 2006, pp. 4 – 9.

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