Hollis Chatelain was born and raised in Pennsylvania, but lived fourteen years of her adult life overseas in Switzerland and in four West African countries. At the end of 1996, she moved back to the United States. Her current studio and home are in Hillsborough, North Carolina. With an educational background in design and photography, the artist has worked in the arts in one form or another since 1976. Her career as a textile artist began in Africa where her interest was sparked by the richness and beauty of African fabrics which are ever so integrated into the everyday life of Africans.
Her distinctive use of color, imagery, and dye-painted scenes of multicultural life have brought her international recognition. Hollis’ work can be found in public and private collections in Europe, Asia, South America, Africa, and North America. In addition to creating her textile art, Hollis frequently juries art or quilt shows, and she lectures and leads workshops on drawing, color, dye painting, quilting, and West African textiles. The artist says of this current body of work, “Inspiration comes from many different places. When my son came home with a series of photographs he had taken at an antique shop, I was immediately drawn to the lines and shapes within the images and wondered what would happen if they were abstracted … The simplification of the shapes seemed to create a rhythmic dancing flow that suited the cloth and was quite different than the harsh substances of the original objects.”
Hollis Chatelain, Antiques to Abstract I, 2007. Fiber. Image courtesy of the artist.