Alum Combines Art, Science and Technology for a Creative Career

Alum John Holloway uses his DAAP art background, combined with technology skills, while working in a North Carolina research technology institute. The challenging demands on both his art and technology skills means he's never been bored during the past 13 years.

If John Holloway's life and work were a piece of art, it would be a collage.

John Holloway
DAAP fine arts graduate John Holloway.
Holloway, a 1981 graduate of the University of Cincinnati's fine arts program, is a painter and digital artist as well as a multimedia design specialist creating 2-D and 3-D industrial and medical computer simulation content at the Research Triangle Institute (RTI) International in Durham, N.C.


He came almost by chance to his art studies in UC's top-ranked College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP) in the mid-1970s. After serving in the United States Navy in the early 70s, Holloway returned home to Cincinnati and enrolled in classes at UC, thinking to major in philosophy.

While working and living in the neighborhood surrounding the university (and working full time on UC's grounds crew), Holloway became friends with art students at DAAP. "That's pretty much how I fell into the art world and my work as an artist," he admits.

In those years at school and afterward, Holloway worked as an abstract expressionist painter using traditional oil paint and canvas. But after a move to North Carolina in the late 1980s and a second degree in Scientific Visualization and 3D Graphics C++ computer programming, Holloway found a new medium for his work: the computer through graphics software.

John Holloway self portrait
A self portrait John Holloway created using 3DStudio Max and Photoshop.
So, while working for RTI as a 3-D virtual reality modeling specialist, he has also employed haptic technology, which investigates the interaction between the computer and touch, to the practice of his art. In terms of both his daily work creating training simulations and his digital art, Holloway explains that it is the effect, impact and uses of the work and art that are his drivers. The technology is just a means to an end: "While I obviously have an avid interest and passion for digital technology, I am first and foremost a traditional painter and artist. The high-end computer graphics tools are a means to communicate, not an end in and of themselves."


Upon first earning his programming and visualization degree, Holloway thought he might like to go to work as a 3D graphics computer programmer. The supervisor that hired him at RTI saw the value of both his technical and art degrees. Says Holloway, "They offered me a position but not as a programmer. The supervisor said to me, 'You're an artist who understands the engineering language and can understand their graphic requirements. What we really need is someone who can create the graphics that the programming engineers can readily use and manipulate.' I do joke that by now, I speak pretty fluent engineer."

John Holloway
John Holloway at work. Visible on the monitors is a medical simulation he is currently creating.
What Holloway has really learned in the role he's filled at RTI for the past 13 years is that artists cannot be segregated from engineering or other disciplines. "The mix of art with other disciplines makes for creative interactions that are meaningful. What I create in my professional work must obviously make logical sense in a fundamental way. In my purely creative digital art endeavors I've learned that it is critical for the artist to be sensitive and cognizant of the relationship between the notions of media and medium. This relationship exists in the analog art world as well of course. There are many dimensions to consider for any single image or project," he explains.


Holloway states that his DAAP education is still the frame of reference he uses in his work and personal projects. That education in abstract expressionism came in very handy in his early days at RTI.

"The graphics technology in those days was much more limited in what it could do. So, for instance, when making a digital 3-D object, I had to do so with as few polygons as possible but still make it credible in terms of coloring and depth so that it would look 'real' to the user. My art background really came in handy for that.

"I came away from my studies of abstract expressionism with two important notions that continue to inform my now more technical pursuits. To view a work as a whole as well as a collection of unique pieces as well as to be flexible in my thinking, always open to alternative approaches and methods when exploring a problem."

The best part of his career encompassing art, science and technology are the many interesting projects and people that are now part of his circle.

"For instance," states Holloway, "A scientist here at RTI called me from a conference he was attending where someone was simulating fluid dynamics in a digital 3D environment with haptic software and doing so using the metaphor of paint on canvas. This scientist knew me well enough to know that this would really interest me. He was right. I tracked down the graduate student who had created that simulation, and a ten-minute conversation turned into a years-long relationship that has affected my professional work and my digital art. Aside from the benefit of the technical relationship, I gained free access to high-end and experimental graphics software for art creation. My work on this project was chosen for the cover of IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications magazine. This opportunity opened the door to invitations to speak and write on the subject of digital art."

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The John Holloway-created image that served as the cover for IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications magazine.
He especially values sharing his digital art with his engineering colleagues because, generally speaking, digital art is not a part of their world. "That means they come up with totally new, quite objective observations about my work. My colleagues here are coming from different disciplines and seeing with very different eyes. They help me come up with answers that, in the end, do satisfy and, more often than not, intrigue me."


John Holloway's Water and the Rocks
An abstraction by John Holloway depicting water in rocks created in 3DStudio Max software.
He concludes, "It's all so much fun. Art, science and technology have all opened whole new worlds for me. I've never been bored in my work with virtual-reality at RTI or in my art because both are stimulating and challenging, one informs the other. It's the excitement of the chase, discovery and the solving of riddles that keeps me going."


Well, there is one downside, he concedes: "The only thing that limits me is that there are only so many hours in a day. I can't seem to do all the creative work I want to do. I still want to get back to my oil paints and canvas as well."

Note: Holloway invites comment or questions regarding his work and art. He can be reached at <jwh@rti.org>