LAURA HOLMES
I paint.
I am an artist.
I make paintings as if they are sculptures.
I excavate problems of painting.
My painting has a tide and a flow.
It washes things away.
I use washes of colour.
Painting is an anthropology.
My paintings are material articulations of the ontology that surrounds the problems and questions of painting.
My studio is my stage.
I will make a dancefloor for kitchen discos in the studio.
Painting and I exist in the same arena.
We share a body but painting hasn't grown eyes yet.
Horses should not be painted.
There is a beautiful moment of balance in painting just as control transitions to intuition.
I continually push painting off a metaphorical cliff to find the moment of its collapse.
Painting is an arena.
I sabotage painting in this arena.
I want there to be a flow between the internal (intangible) and external (tangible) spaces of painting; my painting possesses space which is both internal and external to the canvas.
Reach into my paintings please.
I divide space in painting like the clouds are divided.
I am interested in the space between the canvas and the surface of the painting.
It's like a soup in there.
I take and replace things.
Things gather, I gather things, things sediment in space.
I like reanimating things: objects, memories, colours.
I collect ephemeral things.
Removing paint is just as important and frequent as adding it, or pushing it around.
Brushes wade in paint.
I tap the top of my beer can three times before I open it.
I want to fill the space in my paintings with as much as possible.
Its aggressive. You'd suffocate if you stepped inside them.
Painting is a test of resilience.
Painting is mine.
I can do what I like with painting.
Painting is a process of learning and understanding more than it is making.
The visual outcome doesn't really matter.Painting is like cooking.
Painters are like chefs.
I play with my food.
Soup.
Painting is selfish.
Painting is absurd.
When the end result isn’t important, I return to a child-like exploration of making.
I need failure.
I can do everything when I’m not allowed to do anything.
Painting is, and should be, fun(ny)
SELECTED WORKS
EXHIBITIONS
18 OCTOBER- 16 NOVEMBER 2024
D CONTEMPORARY
Holmes uses her practice to explore and investigate her relationship with painting itself. Her work unravels experiences, observations, objects, and memories, which she extends beyond the canvas. It's a compulsion, kept in check by a set of rules, thoughts, and rituals surrounding painting.
She makes paintings about the way that she makes paintings, but she makes her paintings as if they are sculptures. This is the only thing she can sustain enough interest in to propel her practice. She challenges painting.
17 NOVEMBER-9 DECEMBER 2023
D CONTEMPORARY
D Contemporary is pleased to present ‘The Butterfly Effect’, a group exhibition featuring three emerging UK-based female painters Laura Holmes, Martha Lamont, and Lydia Makin.
In reference to the Butterfly Effect, the exhibition explores concepts of self-transformation through the combination of abstract art and chaos. Symbolizing the dynamic of the collaborative creative process in people and communities, gestures work as powerful cultivators and catalysts for nonlinear effects and self-transformations.
11 MAY - 6 JUNE 2023
D CONTEMPORARY
D Contemporary is pleased to present Adjacent Colours, a group show featuring paintings and sculptures from five artists graduating this year.
By bringing together five post-graduate artists, Adjacent Colours aims to create a constructive interaction of colour and form while shaping a supportive network for emerging artists on their first steps at the London art scene. In keeping with our mission to promote future talents, Adjacent Colours is a part of our annual exhibition program featuring the work of the UK's most promising emerging artists. With subtle allusions to memories and the seductiveness of colour, the artists are presenting their thematics through their own unique style, narrative, and lyricism.