Lily Hollinden’s work can be found at MIXD Gallery in Rogers, AR.

In The Performance of a Lifetime: Pepper Plinkett

An MFA exhibition by Lily Hollinden - April 1st through 12th, 2024

Click to read Lily Hollinden’s MFA thesis paper, “In The Performance of a Lifetime: Pepper Plinkett”!

This narrative depicts a caricature of the human experience through the eyes of the artist’s alter-ego character, Pepper Plinkett. Pepper is a symbol of Hollinden’s personal philosophies of what it means to be human, and serves as a protagonist and guide through an infinite, ambiguous natural world. This exhibition is a celebration of the vibrancy, curiosity, and ridiculousness of a lifetime.

The uniqueness of humor as a specifically human trait and its use as a tool of communication, particularly in expressing authenticity, is the driving force behind Hollinden’s use of clowns in her work. She takes an absurdist approach to the analysis of human nature and history, reviving clichés of the past and twisting them into commentary about the ludicrousness of existence. She is concerned with evolution at all stages, from biology’s gradual changes over millennia to her own personal evolution as an artist and individual. The exploration of cycles (cycles of life, behavior, taste, expression, and experience) is of great interest to her in her studio. Influenced by lowbrow pop-surrealism and contemporary culture as much as centuries-passed art historical canons, Hollinden conflates antiquity and modernity into a world of playful timelessness.