Mapping A Season

StateoftheART is delighted to feature a new body of work by Laurel Holmes titled Mapping A Season

Laurel Holmes (b. 1964) lives in the Western Cape, South Africa. Her work aims to distil the essence of her immediate natural environs.  
Using the sublime as her subject matter, her practice references a nostalgia strongly influenced by memories of an unrestricted, free childhood, where the physical landscape was more accessible. Through printmaking and painting, she examines fragility and strength in a natural world within which our own lives are often harried, bombarded by development, fear, worry, too little privacy.
 
The soul of a place is an intangible force that makes for a unique feel and pull to a specific locale. It may be a particular topography, a small green belt in a city, a wild coastline seas or anywhere there is a synergetic rapport, a sense of belonging with the local landscape and its ecosystems. Holmes’ creative narrative is set in this aspect of place, and in this respect, is a way to make meaning in an increasingly unsettled world.
 
Using fine washi papers, found elements and printing on thin porcelain sheets, she layers these to create works that go beyond conventional printmaking and that invite the viewer to broaden their own thinking about the natural world, where places of beauty, serenity, solace are increasingly hard to access, where things may not be what they seem.  
 
Holmes left a corporate career in 2012. In 2021 she completed a postgraduate diploma in fine art, with distinction, at the Michaelis School of Fine Art, UCT.  Her prints, paintings and ceramics are held in private international and local collections as well as in South African corporate collections, Spier Arts Trust and University of Cape Town’s Works of Art Collection.