Holly Thoburn

The artist Holly Thoburn was born and raised in and around London, its vibrant streets, walls, and city life giving inspiration for her work. Her work focuses on the urban environment; old-school graffiti tags, seemingly lifted directly from vandalized walls, are fused with sprays and drips of paint applied in the gestural style of Jackson Pollock, forming a hypnotic combination of modern abstract art, traditional, rough around the edges graffiti, and its slightly more sterile sibling, government-approved “street art”. Thorburn has exhibited to international acclaim in cities as widespread as London, Los Angeles and Berlin.

Thorburn has travelled extensively, to Germany, India, Australia, and more. Thorburn documents the cities and scenes she encounters on her travels, ensuring that she has enough inspirational material to fuel the creative process on her return to London. Thorburn’s work references the visual identities of her inspirational cities through choices of colour and texture. Often, this means a focus on the surface material and walls that make up a city. A gritty Dublin back street and a graffitied truck lend their tones and tags to Thorburn’s Dublin, whilst paint is overlaid in various colours, shades and shapes, working together with the inspirational element to reflect the nature of a city itself as an amalgamation. Likewise, the warm hues of Darwin are influenced by the dusty, hot landscape of Northern Australia, offset by the inclusion of Aboriginal and street art found on her trip there and granting the viewer a contemplative look into another corner of the globe.