Borgo Museo | Nuove Opere 2019 – 2021
* La Residenza d’Artista 2019 (prima edizione) è un progetto a cura di CCT-SeeCity per la Pro Loco di Castagno, realizzato con il contributo della Fondazione Caript nell’ambito del bando Sviluppo e Cultura 2019 e patrocinato dal Comune di Pistoia. Clicca qui per vedere foto e video.
Biography
Holly McKelvey is an illustrator originally from California (born in 1989) who lives and works in Germany, currently in Freiburg. In the last few years you have lived in Italy (in Viterbo, for a year), in Costa Rica, Scotland, France, Denmark and ended up in Germany. Her academic background is in geology and ecology and this is reflected in her art. In fact, her illustrations concern science and nature. As a freelancer, she works with scientists to communicate their work in a fun, engaging and accessible way to people outside these areas of expertise. Together with a friend and colleague she curates and illustrates a magazine on urban nature called Stonecrop Review. Exploring different cities and regions, he created a series called “Portraits of Place” through illustrations and comic strips, and on the occasion of Palermo Italian Capital of Culture 2018, as CCTraveller, he designed a series of tiles inspired by majolica for CCT-SeeCity which illustrate the nature and identity of the city.
Philosophy
“I am convinced that places are shaped by their geology and ecology, and I try to capture that in my illustrations”. The artist focuses on environmental issues and in particular on the intersection between city and nature and the way in which people and nature interact with each other. The focus is on environmental sciences, which include issues such as climate change and the theme of urban natural spaces. The favorite medium is watercolour.
Artwork in Castagno
The three panels painted by Holly McKelvey on the two walls of the house capture a glimpse of the village of Castagno and part of the flora found there as a true portrait of the country. It is a triptych, three panels depicting vines, olive branches and a playful glimpse of the village, including the bell tower and roofs interspersed with trees, facing a backdrop of mountains. The three murals are painted like panels from a comic strip and surround the corner of a house overlooking the parking lot, at the entrance to the town. For the first sketches, the artist used watercolours, watercolour brushes and a small notebook that she carried around the village, noting sketches and drawings. To create the murals, Holly first prepared the surface with a primer, then acrylic and pigment murals to paint and create a wide palette of colours: “I spent the first week in Castagno exploring the town and painting small watercolours that told of the intersection of nature and city, so I selected the motifs from these watercolours for the murals. These include two plants that I have seen all over the country: olives and grapes. The portrait of the Borgo was inspired by my morning walk, when I passed by the bell tower and looked from the panorama of the roofs of Castagno to the mountains and beyond the valleys”.
Note: unfortunately the Triptych is not entirely visible from the street, to admire it entirely you should enter the private garden of the house, through a gate that the owners open to the public on the occasion of some events. Without entering, and from a certain distance, you can still see quite well a table, the one dedicated to the olive tree.