Welcome to the online art and illustration portfolio of Peter Hollinghurst.

I am a freelance digital artist and illustrator based in the UK (but available for international work as well).
I use an as of yet nameless technique to produce what I like to call 'hybrids' or 'micro transparency collages'. While there are aspects of digital photo-montage to my artwork it actually goes far beyond a simply cut and paste approach and perhaps in the end has far more collage in the result. I use photo-montage as a base and then build up parts of the image using tiny pieces of colours and textures blended together by altering their transparency. The textures and colours merge together to create new ones - 'hybrids' of the component parts. It is actually a technique borrowed from early experiments in creating composite photographs for use in criminology pioneered by Sir Francis Galton - while I am not exactly a fan of his ideas on Eugenics his photographic experiments have proved very productive for me in finding a method of creating digital art that reflects both my oil painting techniques and my ideal creative approach.
Where Sir Francis Galton's experiments were a dead end (rather than finding a universal 'criminal type' as he had hoped, he ended up just creating very average and generic portraits) the precise control I get through careful image selection and blending can be very powerful. Yet the techniques I use also allow for the interplay of the subconscious through 'chance' juxtapositions which enables the resulting image to 'discover itself' as a synthesis of conscious planning and subconscious accident. The generic becomes the archetypal and the average becomes the extraordinary.

RECENT UPDATES

19.08.08 - Linked to my Etsy shop where I am having a sale from now till the end of September.

20.03.08 - 1st Place winner in the Dulwich Picture Gallery 'Age of Enchantment' fairytale illustration competition. Judged by the curator of the exhibition the competition accompanied of classic fairtale illustrations, author and art dealer Rodney Engen, who had the following to say about 'Memory and Muchness', the winning image:

"Imbued with the dense, brooding atmosphere of lost innocence and the remembered childish delights of nursery and playground, there is a haunting sophistication to its composition which lifts the subject beyond the obvious. Even the melancholic title suggests a bitter sweetness and makes this a quite remarkable work by any standards."

25.02.08 - New version of this site created. The old version was dedicated to my Alice in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass series 'Memory & Muchness' and I thought it was about time I re-designed it to reflect my wider body of artwork and illustration. I have retained the old Alice layout in the 'Exhibitions and Prints' section, above.

This site will look it's best at high monitor resolutions
(I use 1280x1024).