Painting and the Photographic Collage
with Holly Roberts
April 13 – 17, 2026
Course Description
Join acclaimed artist Holly Roberts for this dynamic workshop to explore the creative intersection of painting, photography, and collage to build rich, layered narratives. Photography is a captivating medium in itself, but by incorporating it with other materials, we can open our minds and spark new ideas. Holly invites you to engage in exploration, investigation, and risk, as you combine—and recombine—disparate media: photographs, paint, text, and any other materials you wish to use.
Over the course of five days in our studio, Holly shares a range of hands-on techniques for expanding your craft. You learn different ways of applying paint, allowing the texture and structure of painted surfaces to guide you towards your final image. Through demonstrations and exercises, Holly introduces the use of collage elements—including found objects, textures, and paper—to add depth and unexpected meaning to your work. We also experiment with different transfer techniques—pigment, laser, contact paper, and polymer, to name a few—exploring the fine art of gluing and adhering.
Participants are taught to print from the Santa Fe Workshops’ state-of-the-art Epson printers, allowing endless opportunities for reimagining and layering their photographs. While using your own source material isn’t mandatory for this course, it does help you connect your creative processes to the project. We discuss paper choice and best practice for layering media and painting on top of images created with an inkjet printer.
Time in the studio is balanced with lectures, discussions, and critiques (both group and individual) that improve our editing skills and hone our visual literacy. Throughout, participants are encouraged to contribute ideas and share techniques.
This workshop is designed for artists of all levels who want to push the boundaries of their practice by intersecting photography and physical media and discover new ways of seeing and creating. You leave with a series of completed pieces and a fresh approach to combining mediums, inspired by Holly’s distinctive artistic style.
Additional Information
WHO SHOULD ATTEND:
What You Should Know:
Prior to the workshop, participants will receive a list of materials they need to bring with them to Santa Fe. Materials will include paints, photographic imagery, brushes, and other items. Santa Fe Workshops will provide additional basic materials and a printer for use in the workshop.
Activity Level:
To get the most from your workshop experience, participants should be in good physical (mobility, stamina) and mental health. Come prepared for the high elevation of Santa Fe, long days, and seasonal weather including high temperatures. You are responsible for being open and honest about your physical fitness, and we reserve the right to remove you from the workshop if we find your fitness to be less than that which you have described.
Policies:
View Payment, Refund, Withdrawal, and Transfer Policies for domestic workshops.
Accommodations:
Participants are responsible for making their own accommodation arrangements in Santa Fe. On-campus accommodations are not currently available.
Package Price INFO:
$1,895 includes instruction, materials and print fees, daily beverage service, and one group dinner. Travel, accommodations, and all other meals are the responsibility of the participant.
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about
Holly Roberts earned an M.F.A. from Arizona State University, Tempe, in 1981. Her work is nationally and internationally exhibited and has been published in five monographs. She has twice received National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships. In January of 2018, her work was exhibited in a one-person retrospective at the Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester, MA, called 33 Years. In 2024, the San Diego Museum of Art published the monograph “Storyteller: Works by Holly Roberts,” and also presented a 40-year retrospective of Holly’s work with MOPA (Museum of Photographic Arts) titled Storyteller: Holly Roberts.
Her first Monograph was Holly Roberts: Untitled 50, published by the Friends of Photography in 1989. Next came Holly Roberts: Works 1989-1999, published by Nazraeli Press, and in 2009 they published Holly Roberts: Works 2000-2009. In 2018, the Griffin Museum of Photography published another monograph called Holly Roberts: 33 Years, and in 2020, Candela Gallery published a catalog of her show with the gallery called Holly Roberts. A dedicated teacher as well as a prolific artist, she has had a profound effect on a community of artists around the country. She continues to live and work in the Southwest.
Website: hollyrobertsstudio.com
Instagram: @hollyrobertsstudio
