Lonnie Holley

Lonnie Holley is a singular figure in contemporary American art—a self-taught polymath whose practice spans sculpture, painting, music, and performance. Born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1950, Holley’s creative journey began out of necessity and urgency: he carved his first works from sandstone tombstones in the late 1970s to mark the graves of a niece and nephew. Since then, his work has evolved into an expansive and poetic investigation of memory, survival, Black history, and the cosmic scale of human existence.

Holley’s assemblage sculptures, made from found and salvaged materials, are layered with symbolism and spiritual resonance. Each object carries its own past, repurposed by Holley into narratives that speak to both personal and collective experience. His works possess an improvisational intelligence that defies categorization, merging elements of Southern vernacular traditions, Afro-futurism, and deep ecological thought.

What makes Holley exceptional is not only the breadth of his vision, but the way his practice seamlessly merges life and art. Every piece is an extension of his lived philosophy—a belief in creativity as a means of survival, testimony, and transformation. His parallel career as a musician has garnered critical acclaim for its raw, improvisational energy, reinforcing Holley’s status as a major cultural voice working across disciplines.

Holley’s work is held in the collections of major institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the National Gallery of Art, and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. He has exhibited widely, including at the 2019 Venice Biennale and in solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami and the Atlanta Contemporary.

In both his art and music, Holley creates what he calls “evidence”—living records of resilience, resistance, and imagination. His practice is a powerful reminder of art’s ability to witness, to care, and to inspire, rooted in both earthly struggle and spiritual transcendence.

Recent solo exhibitions include Lonnie Holley, UT Downtown Gallery, Knoxville (2023); If You Really Knew, Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, Miami (2023); What Have They Done with America, Blum & Poe, Los Angeles (2022); The Growth of Communication, Edel Assanti, London (2022); Coming From the Earth, Dallas Contemporary, Dallas (2022); The Influence of Images, Elizabeth Leach Gallery, Portland (2021); Everything That Wasn’t White, Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill (2021); Somewhere in a Dream I Got Lost: Works by Lonnie Holley, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Winston-Salem (2019); and The Weight of Everything at James Fuentes, New York, NY (2017). Recent group exhibitions include Souls Grown Deep like the Rivers: Black Artists from the American South, Royal Academy of Arts, London (2023); Deep Horizons, Middlesbrough Institute of Art, Middlesbrough (2023); Called to Create: Black Artists of the American South, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. (2022); The Art of Assemblage, NSU Art Museum, Fort Lauderdale (2022); American South, The Morgan Library & Museum, New York (2021); Forms of Life, Morán Morán, Los Angeles, CA (2020); and History Refused to Die: Highlights from the Souls Grown Deep Foundation Gift, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2018).