Ron Hollingshead
Sculpture
Filament
Size: 60” X 60” X 44”
Date: 02-2022
Materials: Lamps and a 24-outlet extension.
Description:
A stand-in for my body's nervous system, this work describes the bright light feeling as I woke up during surgery to indescribable feelings of pain running through my nervous system.
Lyin’
Size: 44” X 26” X 24”
Date: 03-2011
Materials: Foam taxidermy lion form, X-ray light box, orange Plexiglas, video projector.
Description:
By removing the lower jaw and displaying the work high on the wall, the ordinarily interior space of the mouth becomes accessible, making it easy to see the video proof of my pain (an animation of the images from my last MRI.) In doing this, I make the truth come from the mouth of the “lyin’”.
Spinal Tap
Size: 38" X 12" X 10"
Date: 02-2017
Materials: Cast bronze, Slip-cast porcelain, and steel.
Spinal Tap
Size: 38" X 12" X 10"
Date: 02-2017
Materials: Cast bronze, Slip-cast porcelain, and steel.
Dizzy
Size: 8" X 14" X 3"
Date: 08-2016
Materials: Cast aluminum.
Description:
A cast aluminum tongue sticks out from a cast aluminum brain stem making the cerebellum look like a pair of puffed-out cheeks.
Regimen
Size: Dimensions variable
Date: 12-2010
Materials: Plastic and acrylic paint.
Description:
Regimen is the representation of the prescribed pills I took the month of my last back surgery. As the installation builds, my daily regimen of pills seems to line up like a regimen of soldiers. I have made 679 plastic pill bugs, painted the exact colors of the pills I took, that sit on 679 plastic tongues that protrude from the wall.
Exhausted
Size: 48” X 96” X 48”
Date: 05-2011
Materials: Hospital bed, exhaust system.
Description:
This work, like many, started with just a clever title and the simple idea that even though I lay in bed for weeks after surgery, I still felt tired; I still was exhausted. I immediately wanted to use a hospital bed, one with wheels, and add an exhaust system to it, making it “exhausted.”
Rupture
Size: 84” X 26” X 26”
Date: 02-2011
Materials: Plastic, steel, rubber, cast expandable foam, IV pole, iPod touch.
Description:
Some medical models make changes in scale, color, texture, or material to draw attention to something tangible. I employ many of the same choices to bring attention to concepts that are more ephemeral. All contrived objects, be they for artistic or medical purposes, are only facsimiles. Therefore, I posit that my work, Rupture, can be seen as an equal, analogous scientific model, no different than any traditional reproduction pointed to by a doctor’s finger.
Vertigo
Size: 12” X 12” X 32”
Date: 02-2015
Materials: Wood, casters, steel, and cast aluminum.
Description:
A cast aluminum tongue sticks out from a flexible steel spinal cord/esophagus in a cast aluminum brain stem. A system showing the immediate connection between what you put in your mouth to what comes out of your mind.
Still. Moving.
Size: 18” X 31” X 11”
Date: 12-2009
Materials: Aluminum, rubber, and plastic.
Description:
I have removed the utility of this device, solely created for assisting mobility, with the addition of immovable cast plastic casters. The gesture of the cane, exaggerated by the wheels, implies the possibility of movement where there is none.
Karat
Size: 44” X 18” X 7”
Date: 11/09
Materials: Steel, aluminum, plastic, and rubber.
Description:
Balanced just out of reach, a carrot shaped pill bottle dangles.
Backboard
Size: 2’ 2’ X 6’ X1’ 10”
Date: 10-2010
Materials: Plastic, steel, and clear acrylic resin.
Description:
This started as a simple play on the word backboard but, after having to be picked-up off the floor and taken to the ER by a friend, I understand how helpless you feel when you’re on one of these. For about five weeks I was laid-up. I didn't have the ability to stand, let alone make a lay-up. I made changes rendering the rim and net as useless as I felt. I covered the net in clear acrylic resin making it stiff like a cervical collar.