The Holly Terror Project revolves around a drag character I created in the ’90s. Holly is clad in aqua blue from the pageboy wig atop her head all the way down to her army boots. She draws inspiration from influences ranging from Andy Warhol’s Factory scene and the punk rock Riot Grrrls of the ‘90s to the broader queer culture.
Holly is glam on a shoestring, youthful exuberance that has seen a few things, girly but with an edge. She draws inspiration from Truman Capote’s Holly Golightly and the drag queens of Andy Warhol’s Factory scene such as Holly Woodlawn, Candy Darling and Jackie Curtis. Unlike Warhol’s models, Holly Terror doesn’t actually want to be a star, she just wants to make the world a bit more beautiful with her glamour.
Also inspired by the Riot Grrrls of the 90s punk music scene, Holly Terror is as kickass as she is glamorous. As Mx. Justin Vivian Bond has pointed out, #glamourisresistance.
I wanted to portray Holly in her element, both at home and out on the streets of the city, as well as experiment with more graphic approaches, such as the repetition and the breakdown of printed images. These different methods explore how the image of Holly can be plastic, expressing her character across a variety of photographic genres.
Holly’s drag is never meant to entirely conceal the body underneath – there is intended to be a play between the illusion and the reality, between what we think of as “feminine” and “masculine,” between youth and age. I also wanted to make visible the process of applying the drag of Holly to the naked body – to cite RuPaul’s dictum, “We’re all born naked, and the rest is drag.” The pastel sketches in particular are designed to make the interplay between these layers more explicit, but that interplay is woven in throughout the series.
Twenty years later, I am re-imagining her not just as my own drag character but as an icon that anyone can inhabit, creating images of myself and others as Holly.
hollyterror.com 