Holly Block lives and works in Melbourne and is a currently studying her Master of Contemporary Art at the Victorian College of the Arts. She has had solo exhibitions at MARS gallery (Melbourne) and Seventh Gallery (Melbourne), and has exhibited at Spring 1883 (MARS gallery), George Paton Gallery (Melbourne), Dirty Dozen (Melbourne), Trodadero Art Space (Melbourne), Darwin Visual Arts Association (Darwin) and Viewpoints Gallery (Bendigo). She has over 13 years experience as a dancer, choreographer and performer and been awarded an arts grant for Maribrynong Council for new works. In 2014 she established Tribe for Art, an artist collective, shared studio space and community for mothers who were artists. Her work has been published in The Sleepover Club, January 2016 and Precinct 15, 2015
Holly Block’s practice is multidisciplinary with a focus on video, photography, and performance. Block’s most recent practice explores the impact of technology on human behaviour sexually, socially and romantically with a particular focus on dating applicants such as Tinder. Her oeuvre has deployed reoccurring motifs of skin, hair and hairlessness to explore her own subconscious knots around sexuality, femininity and personal power, while her background in psychology and choreography inform her interest in the performance of gender and identity, seeking to reveal the instability of these states. Moreover, her works suggest that as much as these performances are for others they are also performed for ourselves and this slippery oscillation between the personal and the social imbue her work with an uncanny resonance.