His paintings have a sculptural quality and a low relief—an effect he achieves by using thick impasto to build spikes of paint and textured surfaces. Hollingsworth also prefers to make his works without paintbrushes; instead he squeezes and dribbles the paint directly onto the canvas, or uses unconventional tools to scrape or cut into the paint. He works only in wet-on-wet, meaning that he does not touch the surface of the painting after the work dries. Certain motifs recur in his work, including stripes, spikes, and sometimes text.