From an early age, Hollis was deeply interested in Native American culture and began exploring their history and culture. At the age of twelve, Hollis began traveling in Oklahoma to live for periods with Native American families. He received a unique worldview from these people, which has influenced his life and art.
In the early ’70s, Hollis began working with natural phenomena and searching for new ways to talk about landscape and the forces constantly affecting it. This search led him to his current work with wind- and water-activated sound structures and the specific environmental dynamics of sites. The first Aeolian Harp was developed during a residency at the San Francisco Exploratorium in 1975-76, and this series of wind-activated, ‘sonic architecture’ works continued to evolve over several years. He continued to develop his work in sound structures and landscape, working on-site and establishing a rapport with the dynamics of the site and with the people who encounter these places.
Mr. Hollis continued this work and has earned a reputation for developing sculptured works that people want to inhabit and that would age well and increase in meaning as time flowed over them. He has created numerous major permanent commissions, including “Sound Garden” in Seattle, Washington, “Tidal Park” in Port Townsend, Washington, and several park designs in Seattle, Washington, San Diego, California, and Tucson, Arizona. In the last decade, he has also completed several large-scale projects that explore and celebrate water.
He worked as an artist-in-residence alongside the noted physicist and educator Frank Oppenheimer, founder of the San Francisco Exploratorium Museum and learning library. He has created permanent works for the Port of Los Angeles, the New Denver Airport, and the Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley, California. His temporary works include commissions for the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the de Young Museum in San Francisco and the San Francisco Art Institute.
Mr. Hollis has participated in many Public Art and Landscape Architecture conferences and forums and has lectured widely to promote collaborative thinking. He has also taught studios, and seminars at Harvard University, the University of Virginia, the University of California at San Diego, LaJolla, and UC Berkeley, and has been a member of the Board of Directors of the San Francisco Exploratorium and the Headlands Center for the Arts.
Hollis developed a fascination with sound sculpture and landscape that has persisted throughout his career.
