Arts in Healing
Holly Benton by Holly Benton  Image: My work explores the haunting beauty found in decaying houses—structures once vibrant with life, now surrendered to time, weather, and silence. These abandoned homes stand as poignant symbols of human loss and the ephemeral nature of our existence. Peeling paint, collapsing roofs, vines weaving through broken windows—each detail tells a story not only of neglect, but of memory, presence, and eventual erasure.

I am drawn to the moment where human creation meets natural reclamation. These spaces become frozen points in time: neither fully alive nor entirely dead. They evoke a powerful duality—once homes, symbols of shelter and safety, now transformed into places of fragility and forgotten dreams. The contrast between the intended permanence of a home and its inevitable decay speaks to the transitory nature of all things we build, believe, or leave behind.

Through this work, I invite viewers to confront the quiet force of nature—not as a violent destroyer, but as a patient, inevitable presence that softens and reshapes our built environment. These images serve as meditations on impermanence, the beauty of entropy, and the complex emotional terrain of abandonment. Ultimately, they are elegies for the spaces we lose and the lives once held within them.
My work explores the haunting beauty found in decaying houses—structures once vibrant with life, now surrendered to time, weather, and silence. These abandoned homes stand as poignant symbols of human loss and the ephemeral nature of our existence. Peeling paint, collapsing roofs, vines weaving through broken windows—each detail tells a story not only of neglect, but of memory, presence, and eventual erasure. I am drawn to the moment where human creation meets natural reclamation. These spaces become frozen points in time: neither fully alive nor entirely dead. They evoke a powerful duality—once homes, symbols of shelter and safety, now transformed into places of fragility and forgotten dreams. The contrast between the intended permanence of a home and its inevitable decay speaks to the transitory nature of all things we build, believe, or leave behind. Through this work, I invite viewers to confront the quiet force of nature—not as a violent destroyer, but as a patient, inevitable presence that softens and reshapes our built environment. These images serve as meditations on impermanence, the beauty of entropy, and the complex emotional terrain of abandonment. Ultimately, they are elegies for the spaces we lose and the lives once held within them.

Artist: Holly Benton x