About

Holly Hazelton is a visual artist who grew up knowing, loving, and connecting with the trees and landscape of Iowa. In August of 2020, a storm known as a derecho swept across the Midwest and destroyed 70% of the beloved and iconic tree canopy in her hometown of Cedar Rapids, spurring her investigation into the role trees played in her formative and current experiences of landscape and place. Through the lenses of loss, grief, and memory, her current work explores her changed relationship to the blasted landscape and the empty spaces the trees leave behind.

Hazelton earned her BFA in Integrated Studio Arts from Iowa State University in 2017 and completed her MFA in Painting + Drawing at the University of Washington in Seattle earlier this year. Currently based in her hometown of Cedar Rapids, she continues to explore her evolving relationship with Iowa landscape a year after the storm.