South African visual artist Laurel Holmes

Laurel Holmes

Cape Town | 13 artworks for sale

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  • Holding Court - Painting by Laurel Holmes Holding Court
    Painting / 80 x 120 cm
    R30 000
  • On The Dusk Tide III - Painting by Laurel Holmes On The Dusk Tide III
    Painting / 80 x 80 cm
    R21 850
  • Are We Sinking - Painting by Laurel Holmes Are We Sinking
    Painting / 30 x 30 cm
    R7 000
  • Antidote - Handmade Print by Laurel Holmes Antidote
    Handmade Print / 55 x 75 cm
    R7 750
  • End Of Summer - Painting by Laurel Holmes End Of Summer
    Painting / 80 x 80 cm
    R21 850
  • Above The Shallows V - Painting by Laurel Holmes Above The Shallows V
    Painting / 80 x 80 cm
    R21 850
  • On The Face Of It - Painting by Laurel Holmes On The Face Of It
    Painting / 80 x 80 cm
    R21 850
  • This Exact Moment - Painting by Laurel Holmes This Exact Moment
    Painting / 80 x 80 cm
    R21 850
  • A Blink Of The Eye III - Monotype by Laurel Holmes A Blink Of The Eye III
    Monotype / 35 x 50 cm
    R4 250
  • A Blink Of The Eye IV - Monotype by Laurel Holmes A Blink Of The Eye IV
    Monotype / 35 x 50 cm
    R4 250
  • Sentient V - Handmade Print by Laurel Holmes Sentient V
    Handmade Print / 25 x 30 cm
    R2 500
  • Sentient VI - Handmade Print by Laurel Holmes Sentient VI
    Handmade Print / 25 x 30 cm
    R2 500
  • Sentient VII - Handmade Print by Laurel Holmes Sentient VII
    Handmade Print / 25 x 30 cm
    R2 500
  • Portal II - Handmade Print by Laurel Holmes
    Portal II
    Handmade Print / 32 x 42 cm
  • Portal I - Handmade Print by Laurel Holmes
    Portal I
    Handmade Print / 32 x 42 cm
  • Tumult - Painting by Laurel Holmes
    Tumult
    Painting / 60 x 60 cm
  • Shadows On Sand - Painting by Laurel Holmes
    Shadows On Sand
    Painting / 50 x 50 cm
  • Drift IV - Painting by Laurel Holmes
    Drift IV
    Painting / 80 x 80 cm
  • A Blink Of The Eye V - Monotype by Laurel Holmes
    A Blink Of The Eye V
    Monotype / 44 x 59 cm
  • Drift III - Painting by Laurel Holmes
    Drift III
    Painting / 80 x 80 cm
  • At A Point - Painting by Laurel Holmes
    At A Point
    Painting / 60 x 60 cm
  • A Blink Of The Eye I - Monotype by Laurel Holmes
    A Blink Of The Eye I
    Monotype / 44 x 59 cm
  • A Blink Of The Eye II - Monotype by Laurel Holmes
    A Blink Of The Eye II
    Monotype / 44 x 59 cm
  • Surface And Depth - Painting by Laurel Holmes
    Surface And Depth
    Painting / 80 x 80 cm
  • Sentient VI Ed. 3/12 - Handmade Print by Laurel Holmes
    Sentient VI Ed. 3/12
    Handmade Print / 30 x 35 cm
  • Inside The Harbour - Painting by Laurel Holmes
    Inside The Harbour
    Painting / 48 x 38 cm
  • The Safety Net - Handmade Print by Laurel Holmes
    The Safety Net
    Handmade Print / 60 x 82 cm
  • Water Study III - Painting by Laurel Holmes
    Water Study III
    Painting / 28 x 36 cm
  • Fringe - Handmade Print by Laurel Holmes
    Fringe
    Handmade Print / 36 x 46 cm
  • Below The Waters Of Sleep & Dreams II - Painting by Laurel Holmes
    Below The Waters Of Sleep & Dreams II
    Painting / 60 x 60 cm
  • Topography Of Water I 3/8 - Handmade Print by Laurel Holmes
    Topography Of Water I 3/8
    Handmade Print / 77 x 41 cm
  • Windblown III - Handmade Print by Laurel Holmes
    Windblown III
    Handmade Print / 58 x 33 cm
  • Ground Shadow IX - Handmade Print by Laurel Holmes
    Ground Shadow IX
    Handmade Print / 61 x 32 cm
  • Ground Shadow XI - Handmade Print by Laurel Holmes
    Ground Shadow XI
    Handmade Print / 61 x 36 cm
  • Topography Of Water I Ed.5/8 - Handmade Print by Laurel Holmes
    Topography Of Water I Ed.5/8
    Handmade Print / 77 x 41 cm
  • Foretold - Handmade Print by Laurel Holmes
    Foretold
    Handmade Print / 68 x 40 cm
  • Surface Matters IV - Painting by Laurel Holmes
    Surface Matters IV
    Painting / 30 x 30 cm
  • Water Study IV - Painting by Laurel Holmes
    Water Study IV
    Painting / 36 x 28 cm
  • Windblown I - Handmade Print by Laurel Holmes
    Windblown I
    Handmade Print / 63 x 40 cm
  • Blue In The Sunlight - Painting by Laurel Holmes
    Blue In The Sunlight
    Painting / 40 x 30 cm
  • Below The Waters Of Sleep And Dreams III - Painting by Laurel Holmes
    Below The Waters Of Sleep And Dreams III
    Painting / 60 x 60 cm
  • Beneath The Waters Of Sleep And Dreams II - Handmade Print by Laurel Holmes
    Beneath The Waters Of Sleep And Dreams II
    Handmade Print / 55 x 78 cm
  • Below The Waters Of Sleep And Dreams I - Painting by Laurel Holmes
    Below The Waters Of Sleep And Dreams I
    Painting / 60 x 60 cm
  • Thoughts At Night - Painting by Laurel Holmes
    Thoughts At Night
    Painting / 30 x 30 cm
  • The Pull Back - Painting by Laurel Holmes
    The Pull Back
    Painting / 100 x 100 cm
  • Renewal - Painting by Laurel Holmes
    Renewal
    Painting / 80 x 50 cm
  • Water Study I - Painting by Laurel Holmes
    Water Study I
    Painting / 28 x 36 cm
  • Beneath The Waters Of Sleep And Dreams I - Handmade Print by Laurel Holmes
    Beneath The Waters Of Sleep And Dreams I
    Handmade Print / 55 x 78 cm
  • Internal Geographies II - Sculpture by Laurel Holmes
    Internal Geographies II
    Sculpture / 43 x 59 cm
  • Suspension I - Handmade Print by Laurel Holmes
    Suspension I
    Handmade Print / 55 x 78 cm
  • Beneath The Waters Of Sleep And Dreams IV - Handmade Print by Laurel Holmes
    Beneath The Waters Of Sleep And Dreams IV
    Handmade Print / 55 x 78 cm
  • All Awash - Painting by Laurel Holmes
    All Awash
    Painting / 30 x 30 cm
  • Residual: II - Print by Laurel Holmes
    Residual: II
    Print / 34 x 36 cm
  • Ground Shadow X - Handmade Print by Laurel Holmes
    Ground Shadow X
    Handmade Print / 68 x 40 cm
  • Mutable I - Painting by Laurel Holmes
    Mutable I
    Painting / 30 x 30 cm
  • Mutable III - Painting by Laurel Holmes
    Mutable III
    Painting / 30 x 30 cm
  • Trace IV - Handmade Print by Laurel Holmes
    Trace IV
    Handmade Print / 23 x 37 cm
  • Terrene X - Print by Laurel Holmes
    Terrene X
    Print / 34 x 49 cm
  • Terrene XIII - Monoprint by Laurel Holmes
    Terrene XIII
    Monoprint / 27 x 38 cm
  • Sentient III: 14/15 EV - Fine Art Editions by Laurel Holmes
    Sentient III: 14/15 EV
    Fine Art Editions / 25 x 42 cm
  • Sentient IV   Ed. 1/10 - Fine Art Editions by Laurel Holmes
    Sentient IV Ed. 1/10
    Fine Art Editions / 25 x 30 cm
  • Sentient IV   Ed. 9/10 - Fine Art Editions by Laurel Holmes
    Sentient IV Ed. 9/10
    Fine Art Editions / 21 x 27 cm
  • Above The Shallows - Painting by Laurel Holmes
    Above The Shallows
    Painting / 50 x 50 cm
  • Sentient IV: 3/10 EV - Fine Art Editions by Laurel Holmes
    Sentient IV: 3/10 EV
    Fine Art Editions / 21 x 27 cm
  • Terrene VII - Monotype Print by Laurel Holmes
    Terrene VII
    Monotype Print / 37 x 32 cm
  • Lineation IV: 9/15 EV - Fine Art Editions by Laurel Holmes
    Lineation IV: 9/15 EV
    Fine Art Editions / 38 x 32 cm
  • Sentient IV: 5/10 EV - Fine Art Editions by Laurel Holmes
    Sentient IV: 5/10 EV
    Fine Art Editions / 21 x 27 cm
  • Terrene XVI - Monoprint by Laurel Holmes
    Terrene XVI
    Monoprint / 34 x 49 cm
  • Bloom I - Painting by Laurel Holmes
    Bloom I
    Painting / 53 x 53 cm
  • Encasement III - Printmaking by Laurel Holmes
    Encasement III
    Printmaking / 21 x 21 cm
  • Encasement I 2/2 - Printmaking by Laurel Holmes
    Encasement I 2/2
    Printmaking / 21 x 21 cm
  • Encasement II - Printmaking by Laurel Holmes
    Encasement II
    Printmaking / 21 x 21 cm
Laurel Holmes is a painter and printmaker whose work reflects her deep love for the natural environment and a deep understanding of its role in spiritual restoration. “This earth is what sustains us, its intricacies are endlessly fascinating and immeasurable and yet how irreverently this natural world is stewarded.” Her chosen media are oil painting and monotypes, and recently, more experimental works using layered mixed media to build complex, intriguing surfaces. Mark making, the richness of paint and the beauty of an accidental result from allowing spontaneity to find its way into the artmaking process offsets a fascination with detail. Laurel's artworks are an intuitive articulation of a response to her environment, informed by the observation of the patterns and order of forms that occur in nature.

Laurel Holmes (b.1964)

An emerging artist, Laurel Holmes left the corporate environment in 2012 to concentrate on art making and relocated from Johannesburg to Cape Town in 2016. Her painting training has been with Karin Daymond and Ricky Burnett.
Although working mainly in painting (oils on canvas) and some wax encaustic and mixed media, printmaking came into the mix through workshops at The Artists’ Press in 2013 and Sharon Sampson studio in 2014/5 and in 2019, two internships at Warren Editions.
In 2021 Holmes completed a postgrad diploma in fine art (Honours) from the Michaelis School of Fine Art, working in porcelain paper clay, and is continuing to work with elements of fragility in new works.
She has paintings and print works in private collections both local and international, as well as in the collections of South African corporates.

 
Selected Exhibitions:
 
2022
'Fabrication: a message folded, moulded and stitched' - group exhibition at StateoftheART Gallery, Cape Town & Gallery 2, Johannesburg (co-curator)
'Print in miniature' - group exhibition at Gallery 2, Johannesburg
'A sense of place' -  group exhibition, Latitudes
'Between a Rock and a Hard Place' -  group exhibition at AVA, Cape Town
 
2021
'At The Table: all-women printmakers' , Cape Town
'The Printing Girls: annual exhibition' at The Artroom Parkhurst, Johannesburg
'Mother nature in monotype' -  group exhibition at White River Gallery, Mpumalanga
The SA Print Gallery: SA Print Gallery
'LandsCape' - with Karin Daymond and Natasha Norman at Spin Street Gallery, Cape Town
 
2020
'Mpumalanga Diaspora' - group exhibition at White River Gallery, curated by Karin Daymond
'Vessel' - group exhibition at RK Contemporary, Riebeek Kasteel

'Light from Dark: printmakers in conversation with Alma Vorster'
'She' - group exhibition at Riebeek Kasteel Contemporary
Turbine Art Fair with White River Gallery, Johannesburg
joined The Printing Girls by invitation and exhibited (The Artroom Parkhurst)

2019
'Surface and Depth' -  exhibitition at Gallery 2, with Danielle Malherbe, Johannesburg
'nano 1.3' - group exhibition at Barnard Gallery, Cape Town
Turbine Art Fair with Gallery 2 and White River Gallery, Johannesburg
'Don’t drink the milk' - exhibition at No End Gallery, Johanneburg
'Land & Sea' -group exhibition at Art on Avenues, Somerset West
‘Say Africa’ (White River Gallery)
Initiator of Kommetjie Open Studios event.

2018
The White River Gallery re-launch exhibition;
Innibos: ‘Mosterd na de Maal’
Turbine Art Fair (Gallery 2, Halifax Art)
nano 1.2 (Barnard Gallery)
As it was: group exhibition at White River Gallery, Mpumalanga
Contributed to GIF4 (The Artists’ Press)(copies of GIF purchased by the Smithsonian and the V&A Museum).

2017
Group exhibitions included ‘Disclosure’ and the SA Fine Art Print Fair (Halifax Art)
‘Earth Garden’ and Turbine Art Fair (Gallery 2) and other group exhibitions with Carol Lee Fine Art, In Toto Gallery, Liebrecht Gallery and State of the Art.

2016
Turbine Art Fair (Gallery 2)
‘Surface matters’ (Halifax Art)
‘Scapes’ (State of the Art) and Liebrecht Gallery.

2011-2015
Various group exhibitions at In Toto Gallery, Halifax Art, Rotary Art Festival, the inaugural SA Fine Art Print Fair.

Which new trends or South African artists do you find inspiring at the moment?
The use of digital techniques being incorporated into printworks – for example, Emma Willemse. And always Karin Daymond’s paintings. There’s a ‘pull’ to stand in front of them - even when the painting is physically small, you’re still looking at a large landscape. And I find Peter Eastman’s dark paintings intriguing.
 
Which South African deceased artist do you most admire and why?

Esrom Legae – the sensitivity of line in his drawing and print work, and strength of the images are beautiful. Working in a socio-political environment when it must have been extremely difficult.  
If you could only have one piece of art in your life, what would it be?
Frans Oerder’s ‘Magnolias’.

How did you get started? Did you always want to be an artist?

As children, my mom encouraged my sisters and I to be creative – bake, draw, paint, explore a range of crafts.  When I went to university, I wanted to study Fine Art but not having taken art as a subject at school, I didn’t have the confidence to study it so ended up doing a BCom instead. While working, I started Fine Art through Unisa (but couldn’t finish) and took drawing and painting classes from time to time. I left the corporate environment in 2012 to work as a full time artist, and recently relocated from Johannesburg to Cape Town. I have had painting training with two remarkable artists themselves, Karin Daymond and Ricky Burnett.

What are some of the key themes you explore in your work?

The loss of a visual aesthetic through environmental degradation and the lack of stewardship of our natural resources and natural environs, as well as the impact of this loss of natural areas on the human psyche.

What should people know about your art that they can’t tell from looking at it?

That my remarkable father, who is in his 90s, until recently was precision-making my canvas stretchers.

Tell us more about your creative process.
There’s no fixed process but usually on visiting a new place and spending some time in a new natural environment, there are new references that relate to something I have been thinking that I work on immediately I return to my studio. Other times, there are ideas that I’ve had but their time is not yet and so they percolate for a period, even years, before permeating into a medium and physical works result. When the time happens, all I want to do is work with this and I experiment, particularly in print, to get to an outcome.   

What drives you as an artist?
I think as with most visual artists, it’s to express oneself in one’s chosen media. A curiosity to see if I can make something beautiful of the reference I am using yet still manage to convey a message through the works.  

Do you have a favourite or most meaningful work?

Hard to choose one work as there are many that I have been sad to part with to new homes. However, there is a landscape painting that my parents bought that I am very attached to.

What is your greatest achievement as an artist to date
Someone wanted to buy one of my paintings and when I advised that it had already sold,  responded to say that it was fine -  the painting had done its job. She said it evoked a very emotional response (read a seriously good cry), which was worth hours of therapy.

What are your aspirations for the future?
To make bigger work and to move towards making more abstract work.

Pick three artists you would love to exhibit with. Why?

Karin Daymond –  challenges me!
Natasha Norman Moodley – sets the example of (beautiful) ‘abstract’ water environments
Elize Vossgatter – the scale of her paintings is remarkable and would also test my ability to produce work that could hold up

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