Holly Wilson

In a 2021 review in The National Review, critic Brian T. Allen singled out the work as a favorite of the "Weaving History Into Art exhibition at Tulsa's Gilcrease Museum. "I loved Carol Emarthle Douglas’s baskets and especially Holly Wilson’s Bloodline. It’s a 22-foot-long wall sculpture. On top of a long piece of locust wood cut in equal segments and assembled to look like an artery, small bronze figures process in a line. Each segment represents a generation. The tree’s cut lengthwise, so viewers see its own history. Bloodlines legally determine eligibility for tribal membership. The figures are anonymous and wraithlike. Most of us know little about our ancestry, but it’s ours nonetheless, unique and influential."

Bloodline (2015) is in a wall-hanging sculptural installation that is 29 inches high, 9 inches deep, and 264 inches wide. Wilson traced her Native American lineage to share her identity and family history to prove the amount of blood quantum that is required to be an Indian in her tribe. She was inspired by the Native American story of the Stick People. Bloodline includes several sections, each possessing a different generation of her family. The bronzed patina figures form a single line and walk along the cut locust wood. With the wood cut lengthwise, its life history is unveiled for the audience to see, and the author used that to represent the lives of the figures standing above the wood. When it is hung and light is projected upon it, it creates a shadow. That shadow is the artist's intangible memories constituting the figure's life in history. Leading the beginning of the wall sculpture are her five children, including three that didn't survive; the second section consists of her siblings as well as herself; then her parents, and so forth. With the figures walking together as one, it emphasizes the joint effort of her ancestors and their offspring in building a family.

We Need A Hero (2015) is a cast-bronze sculptural installation. The sharp tacks lodged on the wall are incoming bombs that represent messages coming from society. The messages come in an array of different shapes and colors signifying that not all will survive or reach very far. The blue messages are harmless, but the white ones lead to destruction for it is highly explosive. The little boy, who she referenced after her son, stands proudly on top of a bronze paper airplane. By placing the boy in the center of the incoming danger, Wilson is indicating that the child is ready to face the world set before him.

The Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art holds her sculptures such as "Belonging" (2014) made from geodes and bronze, and "Masked" (2012) made from African Mahogany and Bronze.

In 1992 Holly Wilson earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts in ceramics from the Kansas City Art Institute. In 1993, she earned her teaching certification in primary and secondary education (K-12) from Cameron University in Lawton, Oklahoma. She earned her Master of Arts degree in ceramics in 1994 and MFA degree in sculpture in 2001 from Stephen F. Austin State University in Texas.

Holly Wilson (born 1968) is a Native American artist from Oklahoma. She is an enrolled member of the Delaware Nation and is of Cherokee descent.