Biography

Lonnie Bradley Holley was born on February 10, 1950 in Birmingham, Alabama. From the age of 5, Holley worked various jobs, picking up trash at a drive-in movie theatre, washing dishes, and cooking. He lived in a whiskey house, on the state-fair grounds, and in several foster homes. His early life was chaotic and Holley was never afforded the pleasure of a real childhood. Since 1979, Holley has devoted his life to the practice of improvisational creativity. His art and music, born out of struggle, hardship, but perhaps more importantly, out of furious curiosity and biological necessity, has manifested itself in drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, performance, and sound. Holley’s sculptures are constructed from found materials in the oldest tradition of African American sculpture. Objects, already imbued with cultural and artistic metaphor, are combined into narrative sculptures that commemorate places, people, and events. By the early 1980s, Holley had created an immersive environment in his yard near the Birmingham Airport. Filled with Holley’s sculpture, the yard served as the artist’s studio, gallery, and historical record. In 1996, Holley was notified that his property would be condemned to accommodate the expansion of the airport. Holley settled with the city and moved to a property in Harpersville, Alabama, but his environment was destroyed in the process. In 2010, Holley moved to Atlanta, Georgia. Shortly thereafter, in 2012, Dust-to-Digital released Just Before Music, Holley’s first studio album, launching an ambitious music career for the artist. Holley has performed his music at the Whitney Museum of American Art but also in music halls, bars, and theatres all over the United States and Europe. Holley approaches art and music in the same manner: improvising, inventing, and re-inventing artworks and songs using the materials at hand. His capacity for musical and artistic innovation is seemingly endless and equally hard to define.