We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Holly Danger. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Holly below.

Holly , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

I believe that what’s personal is universal, and because of that, there are always layers of myself and my personal quest for self-discovery in the work that I hope resonates with those who experience it. So many of my recent projects compete for being the most meaningful to me, but the one that stands out is called, “Hit the Ground Running Like I Taught You”. The work was created in 2018 for a non-profit art project called, “Sour Milk” put on by my good friend and fellow artist, Ben Quesnal. The show gave 22 artists the opportunity to transform the rooms of a vacant home, slated for demolition, in Greenwich, CT, for a one night only event. The canvas that was offered to me in this home was a raw, unfinished garage space. My dad, who battled chronic lymphatic leukemia (CLL) for 20+ years, had just passed away three months before. Being on-site in that garage made me miss him even more. When I close my eyes I could see a vision of my dad and the labor of love he put into working in our garage, always building things, fixing cars, and all of the hard work he put into our family home. In that moment I decided to transform the garage space into a tribute of memories, honoring my Dad. “Hit the Ground Running Like I Taught You”, was something my Dad texted to me when I started doing a lot of traveling on my own, and it has stuck with me ever since as a mantra for life. It’s always been a reminder to put my “all” into the things that matter, to create memorable experiences, and to seize the moment because all we have is now.

I immediately booked a flight to Sedona, Arizona, a place we had spent a lot of time on father-daughter road trips. All I wanted to do was sit on a mountain top and cry, but instead, I decided to pack up my camera gear and bring my fiancé Jeff on the same road trip that my dad used to take me on. I wanted to film the open landscape of the surrounding mountains, to breathe the scent of burning hickory wood in the air, and to re-live those same roads and experiences that my dad and I had spent so many hours driving together. Jeff and I set up three video cameras to simultaneously film out each window of our rental car, and we captured the beautiful Sedona scenery from the left, front and right angles that we would ultimately projection map onto the walls of the garage space to recreate the road trip for the installation. Back in the studio, I edited the Arizona footage together. At the last minute I added a brief video clip of my Dad to the opening dedication sequence, which, when projected onto the garage walls, wildly looked like he was there in person! I’ll never forget experiencing this work with others and sharing his story to all who came. Creating this piece of art was such a catharsis for me. I put everything I was feeling at the time into this work. I love the immediacy of working with video art and projections as my main medium. The work often only exists for a brief moment in time, fleeting, and ephemeral, like life itself.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Holly Danger, and I’m a video artist based in Stamford, CT. I create immersive art installations for museums, galleries and live events. Each work is a bespoke piece and site-specific, transforming ordinary spaces into moving experiences through my original video art, music, and projection mapping.

Inspired by nature, the work offers vibrant and colorful atmospheres of motion, light and sound. These sanctuary spaces invite viewers to slow down and appreciate the present moment. I feature themes of self-discovery, transformation, and time through a blend of analogue and digital art practices such as drawing, photography, film, design, collage and animation. My installations have been featured in galleries and museums around the world. A few notable exhibits include the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, CT, the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, NY, The K Museum of Contemporary Art in Seoul, South Korea, The “A” Gallery in Martha’s Vineyard, and the MAD Art Space Museum in Dania Beach, FL. I was recently honored with the Connecticut Artist Fellowship Award in 2021, and was selected as a featured artist at the Digital Graffiti Festival in 2023 as well as the Ignite Festival in 2024.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

After creating, “Hit The Ground Running Like I Taught You”, and my experience learning meditation, it was clear to me that I’m meant to create art as moving experiences. I believe that we will always remember how people and places make us feel. It is my absolute pleasure to create art as sanctuary spaces, visual atmospheres and environments that invite viewers to stay and lounge for awhile. We are so consumed by distractions, constant notifications, and the fast-pace of our daily lives and advancing technology, that we often don’t give ourselves time to just be anymore. I hope that people who view my work allow themselves to sink in, to dive deep, to let in and let go and to breathe. My mission in art is to create spectacles of awe that awaken your senses and hold you in the present moment.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

Transcendental meditation (TM) is something I wish I learned about earlier in my creative journey for sure. Meditation is something I always knew about in passing, but I never really understood it’s power until I found TM. Before my art career I worked in corporate video production for 12 years. While I learned so much from having a challenging and fast-paced job like that, I also found that during that time I de-prioritized myself working in that lifestyle. Keeping up with the workload was ruthless, and I let my art drift into standby mode on the side of the day job. It wasn’t until April of 2019 that I left my job to pursue being an artist full time, and to give my dream of working for myself a shot. Everything was going great until the pandemic hit in 2020 causing all of my work to cease overnight. At that time, feeling defeated by the world, I came across a youtube video with filmmaker David Lynch, talking about his creative practice. He was glowing when he talked about how daily meditation opened him up to a well of boundless ideas for creating art. That was all it took for me to try. I was so inspired by him that I immediately sought out a teacher online. Typical meditations have never worked for me in the past: focusing on my breath, sitting cross-legged uncomfortably on the floor, but TM was different. Perhaps it was also the right place and the right time for me, but either way, it has been the single biggest game changer in my life that I have ever experienced. I now sit in meditation for 20 minutes, twice a day, every day, morning and evening, anchoring the day in silence. I actually look forward to it and can feel the difference in my life if I don’t do it. Since starting my practice my life energy has skyrocketed, my outlook has expanded, and my art has never felt so aligned and focused before. I’ve been meditating now for over three years and because of the absolutely profound positive impact it has had on my life, I plan to put the concept of “slowing down” and holding the audience in the present moment into each of my art pieces now and forever. My most recent example of this would be the work I created for the Ignite Festival in Dania Beach, FL, called, “A Thousand Times Forever”. Inspired by my meditation practice, the work explores the balance of movement, stillness and the spaces between. The exhibit features thousands of strings suspended from ceiling to floor, and illuminated with projections that invite the viewers to interact with the work, and watch as the images on the strings become clear as you and the strings become still.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://hollydanger.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hollydanger/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hollydanger/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hollydanger/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/hollydanger
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/hollydanger
• Other: https://vimeo.com/hollydanger