I Wanna Be Adored: An Interview of Sculptor Holly Silius on the Occasion of Her Solo Exhibition @ Central Server Works in Los Angeles

 

Holly Silius. George Clinton, 2023. Stone and gold leaf.

 

interview by Summer Bowie

“I don’t have to sell my soul, he’s already in me” read the lyrics of The Stone Roses’ groundbreaking hit track “I Wanna Be Adored.” Perfectly salient in their minimal simplicity, they defined a generation who watched their idols on television with a yearning desperation for recognition. Los Angeles-based sculptor Holly Silius was in her youth living in Manchester at the time. It was the end of Thatcher’s era of neoliberal deregulation with its flagrant embrace of conspicuous consumption that made so many of her peers feel a hollow ennui; a listless lack of purpose that left them looking ahead to the next millennium without the slightest clue of where they fit in. Thirty-five years later, Generation X finds itself in an era of social media where everyone can build a virtual platform from which to project their image and ideals. Silius now finds herself adorning and casting the faces and bodies of countless people—some with humble followings, some with household names—studying their every angle to capture the elusive essence that makes them so alluring as subjects.

SUMMER BOWIE: The exhibition takes its title from the 1989 hit by legendary Madchester Shoe Gazeband The Stone Roses. Lead singer Ian Brown was quoted in Clash Magazine saying,“If you want to be adored, it’s like a sin, like lust or gluttony or something like that.” Do you agree, or is the idea of moralizing our desires sort of antiquated?

HOLLY SILIUS: Besides the fact that it is simply a favorite track of mine, it felt apt to name my first solo show I wanna be adored for two reasons: firstly because I like to acknowledge and be patriotic to my roots, I come from Manchester myself, but secondly, because of the relevance the words gave to me when I was putting the pieces together, much further away from Manchester, in LA. Los Angeles is synonymous with a sense of “lust for fame” — it is the land where people go to gain adoration. The works I have made and accumulated over the last few years are all of people that are adored already in some way and they appear to me to desire more and actually deserve more recognition. The works also reflect perhaps a vulnerable side of me too. Maybe it is just that we all want to and should be cherished, noticed, and validated.

BOWIE: Your practice takes inspiration from studies of morphology. What role do linguistics play in your sculptural practice?

SILIUS: My sculptural practice is definitely that of a ‘tangible language’ through the form of the body in whatever way the sitter is casted. Whoever I work with I tend to try to understand their personality before, if I have some time and I have to be flexible with this, I am able to consider how their body communicates with me personally, how I perceive them and I also consider how they are perceived by a wider audience, and what speaks to me to capture them frozen in that body time capsule. This can be over a few years or a day, depending on the opportunity with that person. The piece of Penny Slinger I had been thinking about for a few years but I didn’t know exactly when I would have the platform to demonstrate her in the way I felt she deserved, and as my show was approaching, I felt the urge to make some more bronze pieces. For me, bronze already communicates the dedication behind a piece and the person. I also needed to express more with Penny than using the classic polished bronze, she needed a material as unique as she is, which is where the blow torching came in. That was so much fun, and the unpredictable nature of the chemical reactions within the metal depicted exactly what I wanted to convey.

Holly Silius. Lio Mehiel, 2021. Stone and steel.

Holly Silius. Rain Valdez, 2022. Stone and steel.

BOWIE: How do you choose which body parts to cast with your subjects and the materials for each?

SILIUS: When I am working with a person and I have a vision of the final piece and which body parts I will use, it tends to be because I see a way in which they represent themselves to me, and then I talk with the person more and we develop a casting position that is comfortable. Sometimes, I procrastinate on a casting for a long time as its such an intimate experience that I want to really make it into something that is super considered and I take care of people's time and image. The materials I use evolve over time but everything I use feels very heavy and is representative of the statement I am making about my subject. I can't afford to make mistakes, because they are set in stone or something else so definitive. But the finish can be organic and unpredictable, which I enjoy. It balances the heavy nature of the final piece.

BOWIE: Do you have a clear vision of how you’d like to render your subjects going in, or do the details present themselves in the process?

SILIUS: I am quite clear with the vision I have for the final piece but sometimes the mistakes or accidents that occur are the most joyous part of the process and final piece. The details have to be malleable as I don’t know everyone’s body. They are all so unique, so I have to think on the spot how to account and adjust for these occurrences. Also some people are self-conscious about certain aspects of their body so being respectful of this is also important, and I sculpt and stylize certain parts so I and my subjects are happy. It's a collaboration, always.

BOWIE: Aside from making sculpture, you also have a formidable practice as a makeup artist. You even sometimes apply makeup to your sculpture. Do these practices inform one another at all?

SILIUS: I have been working as a makeup artist for twenty years now. I started in prosthetics and special effects, moved into theater, opera, tv, film, and finally into fashion and beauty. For me, the sculpture and applying makeup go in a complementary tandem, as adding makeup onto the bodies and faces is always applied by me in a sculptural way. I will sculpt the body with color or textures like gloss and shadow effects so that sections with a matte finish blend and melt into a dry section. I move around the piece or the person imagining how it will be viewed at every angle. I know faces and bodies quite well and appreciate the individual nuances each one has every time.

Holly Silius. Mr. Wash, 2022. Bronze and steel.

Holly Silius. Penny Slinger, 2024. Bronze & blow torch.

BOWIE: As a makeup artist, It’s your job to project a character onto your subjects that they may not immediately see, but that they may have a natural ease in accentuating. Is this something you find easy to do with yourself?

SILIUS: Creating illusions for beauty, to tell a story or to create a character from whoever I am working with is like a fantasy or dress up. People are very concerned with protecting their image, even more so when they have bad taste, so to encourage an idea onto them is sometimes challenging until they trust you. Personally, I don’t create a character for myself, I am just myself and I have evolved like a sculpture can evolve with age, my ideas and taste changes and the way I present myself changes with confidence and with credibility.  

BOWIE: How did this particular body of work come together at Central Server Works?

SILIUS: I met Joshua who owns CSW through a shoot with George Clinton for Autre, he curated George’s show at Jeffrey Deitch gallery. I proposed to cast George’s face for the shoot and Joshua got to know my practice more. The accumulation of faces and bodies in stone, resin, metal and wax from the last few years in my studio led me to making six new bronze pieces to go alongside the older works. Then, I added a couple of new casts with artist friends Langley Fox and Penny Slinger, who we had mutually wanted to cast for a while, but I was waiting for the right moment to capture them for the perfect presentation.

Holly Silius. Langley Fox, 2024. Bronze & blow torch.

Holly Silius. Melt me, 2024. Wax, wick, and twig.

BOWIE: What’s next for you?

SILIUS: I have so many ideas of sculptures I want to make, including some 3D-printed body pieces I made in 2021 inspired by Georgia O’Keeffe that I want to dismantle and take molds of, then re-purpose the design with bronze or steal, weld parts together and use the blow torch for an oil slick color effect. I got really into the blowtorching. I also have this idea to make huge, 3D sculptures of environmental figures using ocean waste plastic. I need a sponsor for this one and I already wrote to David Attenborough to see if he wanted to be involved. I’m also thinking of experimenting with AI as a more financially conscious way to explore my ideas, trying to embrace the technology aspect of that.

I Wanna Be Adored is on view by appointment through May 18 @ Central Server Works 517 Victoria Ave Venice, 90291

 

Holly Silius. Holly, 2024. Bronze & blow torch.

 

Love Is Something Heavy: An Interview with Mixed Media Artist Sara Rahbar

Sara Rahbar is an artist who bravely transverses borders and permeates boundaries. Though often labeled an “Iranian American artist” (her family fled Iran in 1982 during the beginning of the Revolution), she prefers to relocate herself in a collective humanity. Transcending genre, her work ranges from photography and paint to textiles and sculpture. Rahbar’s work reflects this permeability, combining seemingly antithetical ideas – American flags sewn together with traditional Middle Eastern fabrics, hearts made out of military backpacks – in a beautiful and generative juxtaposition.

At the same time that Rahbar moves fluidly between varying geographies and ideations, she maintains immovable strength in herself and her work. She says, “I love strong things.” Here, she’s talking about working with bronze in sculpture. But this statement speaks to the artist’s attitude towards art, selfhood, and humanity at large. In a world where pervasive pain and violence can feel crippling, Rahbar is able to find peace – by going vegan, by thinking critically, and namely, by concretizing our anxieties through art.

Sara Rahbar will be showing new work from now until May 6th at NADA in New York City for Carbon 12 Dubai Gallery. We got to talk to the artist before the opening about exploring identity, documenting history through art, and communicating emotion in the age of superficiality.  

OLIVER KUPPER: Your work deals a lot with conflict and identity loss. This sense of tumult has really seeped into your upbringing. Do you have really clear memories of leaving Iran during the revolution?

SARA RAHBAR: No, I really don’t. I have blacked out a lot. I left Iran when I was like four and a half or five. And I can barely remember anything from that whole time period. In the beginning people just assumed that my work was about identity because my first body of work was the flag series, but I wasn’t thinking about identity  at all when I made them, it was always about so much more than that for me.

KUPPER: That’s really interesting.

RAHBAR: It’s more about what I’ve witnessed. I’m recording, like a camera, this history that’s happening around me. I don’t think much about my identity. I don’t care much about it, to be honest with you. The only time I care about it is when I am being labeled. Being labeled as “Iranian American” really bothers me. I just don’t feel like I’m any of those things. I’m just a human being living on the planet earth.

KUPPER: So at that age, you really had no memory of that. The art you’re making now came from a later period. And it was just a circumstance.

RAHBAR: I don’t consciously try to bring anything back into my work. Iran is such a faded memory for me. The last couple of times that I was there, I felt so disconnected. The memories are gone and it doesn’t feel like home. I’ve stopped going back. I don’t remember anything enough to actually be able to use it in my work. But there’s something there. The memories are gone, but the feelings are left. There’s a lot that is subconscious – frustration, anger, fear, confusion. But I’m definitely not trying to mesh any two cultures or identities together, I just follow my instincts when it comes to my work.

KUPPER: How old were you when you started to communicate your ideas through art?

RAHBAR: I think I started drawing when I was very little. I think that i was around five or six years old. I remember collecting stuff and drawing. Of course, I didn’t think it was anything serious. I just always liked making things.

KUPPER: You were being creative.

RAHBAR: Yeah. I think it was an instinct.

KUPPER: Were your parents really traditional, or did they support you being creative?

RAHBAR: They weren’t very traditional. My mom, and my brother were always very supportive. At the same time, I don’t think anyone really understood what the hell I was doing or why, including me. There definitely was a fear of, “How the hell are you going to be able to support yourself doing this?” I wouldn’t say anyone was religious, traditional, or conservative. Nothing like that at all.

KUPPER: It’s rare when a kid wants to become an artist.

RAHBAR: Unless you have a family that has a background in the arts, it can be be kind of scary thing. It’s hard to imagine how you’re actually going to sustain yourself from doing this.  There is a lot of unknown, like everything else in life.

KUPPER: What did your parents do?

RAHBAR: My mom was a social worker in Iran. She worked with runaways and abused children. But when she came to the US with my father they went into the restaurant business. You have your degree when you’re in your home country, and you come to a new country and you have to start from scratch. When we came here, we had nothing, and my uncle owned a restaurant. So that’s where my father went to work. It was easy and it paid the bills for a family of four. And later on they eventually went on to own their own restaurant.

KUPPER: Well, Americans love to eat. You open a restaurant, and Americans will be there to eat the food. 

RAHBAR: [Laughs.] Yeah, you figure, it’s a basic necessity…

KUPPER: You went back to Iran, and you worked on a really interesting photography series. What did you discover about your return and this work? What did you discover about yourself?

RAHBAR: That was when I finished school. And by “finished school,” I mean I ran out of money. So I had to figure some things out. I didn’t understand what it meant to have a body of work, or to do a series. I just knew that I had to find my own voice. My first instinct – and I always go by instinct – was to take a plane right from school in London to Iran. Everything happened like a domino effect. It was the 2015 election, so there was a combination of influences. First, I would go into the studio with all these things I had collected – costumes, objects and decorations that were used for horses and donkeys, random things I’d find in flea markets. At the same time, I was documenting the elections with sound and photography. For some reason, the camera was the first thing that I picked up when I went there. I always painted and drew, but it wasn’t enough for me. So I figured, I’ll do photography, sound, and projection. Painting always left me feeling like I needed more. Also, in Iran, I had a lack of space, so it was just easier to photograph. Everything was so new and different. I kept going back and forth, photographing and documenting. Now, when I look back on it, I think, “What the hell was that?” Not the stuff on the streets with the election, but the stuff in the studio. I don’t know what the hell that was. It was just about objects and color. I was trying to sort some things out. I’m more connected to the sculptures I’m doing now. I feel like the photographs were me trying to resolve something in my head.

KUPPER: Or it was an experiment.

RAHBAR: That period was very experimental. I was also super young. This was ten years ago. It was very raw. Like, “I like this. So I’m going to put it on my head and take a photo.” But then again I was just following my very basic and immediate instincts, and I still am. [Laughs.]

KUPPER: Did you ever feel like what you were doing was going to be censored while you were there?

RAHBAR: For sure. But I always knew that I would leave eventually. There was always this angst and discomfort that I felt when I was in Iran. I was always reminded somehow that I was a foreigner and a woman, and this always made me feel very uncomfortable. So I always knew that I could never show the work there, or stay there long term.

"There are so many different elements at play– violence, workers, pain, love; it’s the human condition.  Being alive on this planet and trying to go from one day to the next. I don’t really think it through too much. It’s instinctual. It comes from what I’m witnessing around me."

KUPPER: Is that why you left, to be able to show that work?

RAHBAR: No. It was like a relationship that comes to an end. It just ran its course. I remember waking up and being like, “I’m done.” I’m getting a plane ticket and not coming back.

KUPPER: Interesting. And you went to New York after that?

RAHBAR: Anywhere can be your home; it’s for you to decide what “home” means to you. You can restart anywhere.  And for me, New York has always felt like my home.

KUPPER: Did the flag series become before or after that? Or during?

RAHBAR: I made my first flag for my graduation project when I was still in London. It was right around that time of the crazy chaos of 9/11. I never thought that in 10 years I would make 52 flags.

KUPPER: As a mixed media artist, what do you enjoy about each medium that you employ, and what are some of their limitations?

RAHBAR: I can’t think of too many limitations. I love bronze, and I love wood, and there are so many different kinds of wood and bronze, and so many different techniques that can be used, I’m learning more and more every day. I didn’t specifically study art. So I don’t have any specific technical skills. I make things and I learn as I go along. And I don’t think that that is necessarily a bad thing. I make mistakes, I figure things out and I don’t let anything stop me, I keep moving forward no matter what. And I like that freedom. Sometimes, it’s a limitation and it can be frustrating. With bronze especially, because it’s expensive, definite, and time-consuming. But I feel like it’s good to make mistakes, learn and make your own way. Sometimes the mistakes are the best things that can possibly happen, good things can happen when you let go and let things come on their own, naturally.

I always knew that I was going to do sculpture. Working with textiles, painting, and taking photos, always felt safer for me somehow, it took me a while to make that jump to bronze and wood. I had to work up the courage, but now I feel completely free.

KUPPER: There’s a lot of freedom, but you also have a lot of control over your materials. It seems like control is also an integral part of your work. Would you say that’s true?

RAHBAR: I have issues with control. It’s a very strong underlying theme in my work– guns, police nightsticks– objects that hold things down, hold things together, and contain things. I use these objects a lot. It definitely stems from my childhood. I don’t like to feel controlled. I have issues with police and authority. It comes through in my work.

KUPPER: What can we expect with your new work being shown with Carbon 12 at NADA?

RAHBAR: It’s new work. I’m recording a history that is taking shape and form around me. There are a lot of old tools and guns used in these works.  They are like these historical sculptural totem poles. There are so many different elements at play– violence, workers, pain, love; it’s the human condition.  Being alive on this planet and trying to go from one day to the next. I don’t really think it through too much. It’s instinctual. It comes from what I’m witnessing around me. And If I sit there and analyze it too much, I will kill it.

KUPPER: It’s hard to live sometimes. It’s a very intense world.

RAHBAR: [Laughs.] Not to be depressing and negative, but that’s how it is.

KUPPER: It seems like we have art to be able to put those pieces together, like a psychological puzzle.

RAHBAR: Exactly.

KUPPER: Which is why your work is so interesting. Is your work about finding peace or coping with war?

RAHBAR: I would like to find peace. I find peace when I’m making the work. I was definitely not at peace when I was younger. I’m getting closer to it as I get older. As long as I’m working, there is peace within me. I’m very aware, that when I’m not working, I’m uncomfortable in my own skin. The work makes me feel comfortable, and allows me to be able to be with myself, and the world around me. My work is very therapeutic for me. It saves me from myself time and time again.

I’m very sensitive, I don’t like seeing humans or animals in pain. I’m a vegan, and it upsets me tremendously when I see animals being slaughtered and tortured. Images of war upset me, violence kills me, sometimes it feels like we are constantly trying to kill and eat everything around us. And there is so much happening at the same time, that it’s easy to become overwhelmed and feel exhausted and paralyzed.

KUPPER: I agree with you. There’s a lot happening.

RAHBAR: You just want to hit pause, and tell everybody to stop what ever it is that they’re doing.

KUPPER: You just want to stop and have a moment to think, and get people to consider what they’re doing.

RAHBAR: Humans behave very badly. We are constantly attempting to kill off each other, this plant and all the living things that live on this plant with us.

KUPPER: The animal torture, the war– with the Internet, you have so much access to what’s going on. It gets even more intense because you can’t hide from it.

RAHBAR: Exactly. I go on Instagram, and I get so overwhelmed sometimes. The images, the videos – there’s so much access and information. And just because you aren’t looking at it doesn’t mean that it’s not happening.

KUPPER: Do you have any other series that you’re working on? Or are you continuing to work with these materials? Do you have a dream project you want to work on?

RAHBAR: I feel like bronze is my dream material. I love strong things. Glass makes me super uncomfortable. Lace, soft fragile things make me uncomfortable. Bronze makes me so happy. I feel like I found my material. And mixing wood and bronze together, that’s my happy place. Right now, I’m working on a lot of isolated body parts in bronze.  I read this quote the other day by Benjamin Alire Saenz that really got to me: “Love was always something heavy for me. Something that I had to carry.” …That hit me supper hard when I read it, and It has been the inspiration for the body of work that I’m working on currently.

Bronze, on its own, can feel cold, but when I combine the bronze with wood and the objects that I collect, it softens it some how. Making objects with bronze and wood, that’s my happy place. 

You can see new work by Sara Rahbar at Carbon 12 Dubai's booth (4.05) during the NADA Art Fair in New York from May 5 to May 8, 2016. Intro text by Keely Shinners. Interview by Oliver Maxwell Kupper. Photographs by Arash Yaghmaian