Laura Holmes

Laura Holmes (b.2000, Norwich) is a British painter, based in London. She left De Montfort University (Leicester) in 2021 with a BA (Hons) in Fine Art, and is now graduating from the Painting programme at The Royal College of Art. She recently had her first solo show (Colour Of A Bruise, 2022) in London, and has shown work in multiple group shows in London and Leicester.

Holmes uses her practice to unearth methods of investigating her relationship with painting itself. Her work is the unfurling of experiences, observations, objects, and memories, which she pushes into a space beyond the canvas. It's an addiction, kept in control by a list of rules, thoughts, and rituals on painting.

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Degree Details

I paint.

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.

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.

I divide space in painting.

I take and replace things. Things gather, I gather things, things sediment in space.

I like reanimating things: objects, memories, colours.

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.

Painting is like cooking. Painters are like chefs.

I play with my food.

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.