Biography
Holli McEntegart (b. 1980) is a Tamaki Makaurau-based interdisciplinary artist moving fluidly between social practice, video, performance, photography and text based work. Engaging an audience who are often present as participants and co-creators, her projects incorporate unique materials like salt, spiritual mediums, carrier pigeons, or a barbershop quartet. Her work in Motherhood is an extension of her creative practice, with a focus on re-centering and healing lived experiences through socially engaged art and a desire to unpack the complexities of who and what we value as a society, so we may explore systems of change.
McEntegart received her Bachelor of Visual Arts in Photography in 2006 (Unitec, NZ), a one year MFA scholarship at Carnegie Mellon School of Art in Pittsburgh, USA (2011/2012), and a Masters of Visual Art and Design from Auckland University of Technology in 2013. In 2014 she was an Artist in Residence at the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture in Maine (USA). In 2018 she trained as a full spectrum doula after giving birth to her first son in Brooklyn, New York. After almost a decade living in the United States, Holli returned to Aotearoa in 2020 and was awarded the 2021 Letting Space Public Arts Commission for her ongoing participatory project, Inhabit. Her work has been performed and exhibited throughout the USA and New Zealand
Artist Statement
My studio practice is inextricably connected with my everyday life. It exists in response to, persistently, in protest. It shape-shifts and waits around corners. With every project, my work becomes a document of my lived experience, mapping a search for belonging and interconnectedness. As a Pākehā New Zealander, I'm guided by both the Celtic traditions of my colonial ancestors and the decolonizing lens through which I try to live.
Becoming a mother has pushed me to the very edges of my selfhood. As a maker, it is there that I find a new materiality that longs to be reimagined, repurposed and rehoused.
I seek public engagement through community participation, weaving individual stories into collective narratives. I look to those community relationships as material; small gestures like sharing a cup of tea become intimate acts of mark making.
Most recently I’ve been interested in the residue of labour found in textiles, the stains and holes that map their journey as they are handed down through generations, In unraveling and reconstructing, not just the yarn, but the story, history and traditions embedded in the warp and weft.
Curriculum Vitae
Residences
Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Artist In Residence, Maine, USA. 2014.
Awards & Fellowships
Letting Space Public Art Commission, Wellington, NZ, 2021
Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture Artist In Residence, Full Fellowship, 2014
Prix de la Photographie Paris. Honourable mention, 2007
Education
Masters of Art & Design, First Class Honours, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand. 2013.
Masters of Fine Arts Post graduate exchange, Carnegie Mellon University School of Fine Art, Pittsburgh, PA, USA. 2011.
Bachelor of Visual Arts, Photography Major, UNITEC, Auckland, New Zealand, 2006.
Exhibitions & Performances
Solo Exhibitions
2023
Inhabit, Iteration 2, Fale Community House, Auckland, NZ. 6th March - 1st April, 2023.
2022
Inhabit, Iteration 1, Courtney Pl, Wellington, NZ (Letting Space Public Art Commission,) 2022
2017
Salient Hush, 100 Rochester Gallery, 100 Rochester Ave, Brooklyn, NYC. 16th November – 17th December, 2017.
2014
In Loving Memory, L.C. Bates Museum, Skowhegan, Maine, United States. 2014. Permanent collection.
Group Exhibitions
2019
Skowhegan Two Channel Video Festival, W. 22nd Street, New York, NYC - 6th January - 1 February 2019
2017
Oh My God Maggie!, OPEN (C)ALL: TRUTH, BRIC Arts, 647 Fulton Street, Brooklyn, New York. 15th November 2017
Oh My God Maggie! LUMEN8, ArtSpace at Staten Island Arts, New York. 15th June – 10th September
2016
Oh My God Maggie! Screening at Human Resources, in conjunction with The Institute For New Feeling – FELT Book Exhibition. 18th May 2016. Human Resources, Los Angeles, United States.
The Institute For New Feeling – FELT Book Exhibition, Werkärtz, Los Angeles. 6th May – 24th May 2016.
Oh My God Maggie! Solo exhibit and panel discussion. Staten Island Arts, Culture Lounge Gallery, Staten Island, New York. 29th March 2016.
Oh My God Maggie!, Great White, Staten Island Arts, Culture Lounge Gallery, Staten Island, New York. 3rd March –13th May 2016.
Lighting Cauldrons of Speculation, SkowheganPERFORMS. Socrates Sculpture Park, Long Island City, New York. Saturday, October 3rd 2015
2015
Missed Connections II, Artweek, Auckland, New Zealand, October 10th –18th 2015
Temenos, SkowheganPERFORMS. Socrates Sculpture Park, Long Island City, New York. Saturday, October 3rd 2015
Re-Turning The Magic, Gallery One. Suite 108, Ironbank, Auckland, New Zealand, 7th May 2015.
Beside the mind: Tracing the magic of paranoia. Oral presentation/performance, in collaboration with Rachel Liebert, 2nd Critical Social Psychology Conference: Affect, Embodiment, and Politic. February 2015, Barcelona, Spain.
2014
The Small Show, The Vivian Gallery, Matakana, New Zealand. 12th December 2014 to 11th January 2015.
Temenos, SkowheganPERFORMS, Socrates Sculpture Park, Long Island City, New York. 27th September 2014.
2013
Beyond the ultraviolet, beyond the infrared, St Pauls Street Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand, 2013.
1848-1957, Talk Week, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand, 2013.
Scouting Heretical Alignments, 5th Auckland Triennial, Auckland City Art Gallery, The Lab, Transforming Typographies.
2012
A Ventriloquist Cowboy Walks Into Town, AD12, Auckland University of Technology, Art & Design festival, Auckland, New Zealand.
Zinia Elegans Red Sun, RM 103, Karangahape Road, Auckland.
A Ventriloquist Cowboy Walks Into Town, Extra Fancy, Bakery Square, Pittsburgh, United States. 2012.
2011
Zinia Elegans Red Sun, AD11, Auckland University of Technology, Art & Design festival, Auckland, New Zealand.
2010
Three’s A Crowd, Te Karanga Gallery, Karangahape Road, Auckland, New Zealand.
ME And My MUM, Snowwhite Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand.
2008
Overdrawn, Curated Group Exhibition, Art Station, Auckland, New Zealand.
There’s a Pew In The Church Of My Heart For The Obsessed, Curated Group Exhibition, Universidad del Pacifico Gallery, Chile.
2006
Ad Hoc: An Unlikely Gathering of Contemporary Artists, The Chapel, Auckland, New Zealand.
Novel: An Exhibition of New Artists, Warwick Henderson Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand.
Publications
“Holli McEntegart” Podium Showcase — Threaded International Art & Design Magazine, Ed. 18, 8 page feature. Published May 2015. // ISSN 1176-5941
“Holli McEntegart”, WĀHINE — WOMAN, The Vernacularist SPECIAL EDITION, in press, 2015 // Published May 11th by Depot Artspace, Devonport, Auckland, New Zealand. ISBN 978-0-473-316774-7
Space/Launch (the publication) 2014. Edited by artists Ester Partegás, Sreshta Rit Premnath (founder, Shifter Magazine), Birgit Rathsmann, Adam Shecter, and Roger White (co-founder, Paper Monument).
The LAB book — The LAB: At The 5th Auckland Triennial 2013 // Edited by Kathy Waghorn. Designed by Index ISBN 978-0-473-28701-6. Project 4: Transforming Topographies for The Lab Book, 01.07—21.07
Bright Young Things, Works by Emerging New Zealand Artists // Published by Chrysalis ISBN: 0-473-10117-3
Threaded International Art & Design Magazine, Ed. 4, 2007. The Hope & Glory Issue. Artist profile p.33 Photography, cover, gatefold and five page spread.