
Molly Holland is an emerging artist currently completing her Bachelor of Fine Arts at UNSW Sydney with majors in Printmaking and Painting. She lives on and grew up on Dharug and Gundungurra land in the Blue Mountains, NSW. Using colour, fluid brushwork, the layering of patterns and images, moving image and performative elements- her work explores the experience of the brain and psyche in methodical and abstract ways, often drawing on connections to nature, memory, relationship to time and place, paths of thought and the experience of feelings as well as the interconnections between our surrounds and our psyche.
Neuron Forest , 2022. Etching and aquatint, with watercolour monotype and hand painted watercolour on BFK RIVES. 8 prints - 56 x 76 cm respectively.
The brain is made up of a complex system of neurons and chemical reactions that affect our actions, thoughts and feelings. Through embodying biomorphic forms based on science and imagination "Neuron Forest" replicates the complexity of the brain which is filled with thousands and thousands of neurons, which branch, react and connect together creating a "neuron forest" (G. Koetsch, 2011). This questions our brain as an imitation of nature and visa versa. Forms and patterns spread across the pages evoke the idea of neurons working together, indicating how our thoughts and feelings are premeditated us in a complex biological way. Imagery based on neuron networks draws connections between the way neurons imitate the patterns of nature, roots, leaves, trees and cells, these intricate life systems correlating with brain function "each neuron is connected to another 1000 neurons creating an incredibly complex network of communication" (T. Newman, 2017). The juxtaposition of microscopic and macroscopic worlds questions the ways in which these tiny neuron reactions enclosed within one's head bare similarity to the macroscopic scale of nature while also affect human behaviour in the outer world, expressed by the expansion of prints beyond the constraints of the paper. These unseen and miniscule neuron networks and firings become so crucial to our life in way we may not realise.







