Wiley Holton

Bio: 

Wiley Holton is a Boston-based abstract artist whose work is an exploration of geometry, color theory, and mental health. She has worked in oil, acrylic, graphite, printmaking, clay, and wood. Born in Boston in 1997, Wiley graduated with distinction from Colby College with a major in studio art and a minor in mathematics. She received the President’s Purchase Prize for her painting “Circumferences of the Void” featured in the Colby College Senior Capstone Exhibition in 2019. This piece remains in the permanent collection of the Colby College Museum of Art. Wiley has since been awarded Artist of the Year in both 2022 and 2023 at the Cambridge Art Association’s Members Shows. She was also a featured emerging artist at the Boston International Fine Art Show in 2022.

Statement: 

Wiley Holton's kaleidoscope paintings articulate the chaos, anxiety, and depression that stem from her ADHD and, in depicting how her brain feels and functions, challenge the misconceptions that people attach to this neurological disorder and mental illnesses in general. Each piece explores contrast between the background and the lines themselves, demonstrating a complexity of vision, emotion, and experience. Wiley’s style continues to evolve with her evolving understanding of herself. Beginning with the addition of filling in the shapes of the kaleidoscopes with color in her Emergent Series, she explores the concept of finding peace amongst the chaos, of art as remedy. Her Horizon Lines style, which breaks down nature into its core colors and explores the vast range of hues between them, marks a continued study of meditation, even nostalgia. In her newest series, Wiley aims to bridge the abstract with the familiar as she combines both of her usual styles, mixing the innate connotations of colors with the geometry of her world. This series captures the vibrancy of flora, cultivating an aura of endless summer.