Columbia watercolorist Dare Holloway is, in his words, a “lifelong artist” who has been practicing art since elementary school. Although he attended college for art, he says he often found himself going against the grain of what he was taught in school and breaking the traditional rules of how things are supposed to be done.
This free-spirited attitude is present in all facets of how he approaches his work. Holloway said, most times, instead of planning out one of his pieces, he tends to “just hop into it.”
His work is often described by others as “creepy” but alluring; to Holloway, art is about breaking the rules and keeping things "casual," while still inserting a level of personal meaning that he said is best displayed through subjects other than self portraits.
Holloway often gets his inspiration from books. The artist works in a library, and by reading the books he finds there, he is able to come up with new ideas for paintings.
“I’ll read a sentence or a paragraph of a book that gives me a good visual, or if it invokes strong emotion, I’ll usually get ideas from that. I find a lot of meaning in a sentence,” Holloway said.
Holloway, who has been working solely with watercolor for the past year, paints portraits which are surprisingly detailed for the medium he uses and display emotive expressions complimented by bursts of color and unusual details like extra eyes or abstract backgrounds.
His work can be found both on his portfolio website blackhatsgallery.com and his Instagram blackhatsgallery.