Laura Holmes: Unveiling the Mind of a Practical Overthinker

‍ARTCOLLECTORNEWS: Please tell us a bit about yourself and your artwork?

LAURA HOLMES: I paint. I am a painter and I make paintings! I grew up in Norfolk but I always tell people I'm from Suffolk. I now live and work in south-east London. My painting is about painting itself, as it's the only thing I have enough interest in to sustain a practice. I’m interested in how I relate to painting, and the philosophy and ontology around painting. I like using painting to answer or investigate my own absurd or inquisitive questions about what it means to be alive.

ACN:How has your background shaped your artistic practice?

LH:Inevitably my background does shape my painting but it's not really a part of my practice that I'm interested in enough to really know how or why. My background is fairly boring- I'm just an average gal from the countryside. The only part of my background that I strongly advocate or champion in my practice is the fact that I have always had to work to afford the privilege of painting in the way that I want to. I now work in a school when I'm not painting, and I paint anytime I can when I'm not working; I don't accept the fact that I can't have more than one career. I’ve been disregarded or looked down upon so many times when I’ve told gallerists/collectors/advisors that I work, and I can always sense them devaluing me and my practice… that's what I get for clawing at an industry of nepotism, privilege, and cliques I guess. The more it’s happened, the more I've learned to feel angry about it.To be honest, beyond this, I try really hard to shield my actual self with my painting. There's a lot in my practice that's so personal or narratives that are so unique to myself, so half of the game I play with painting is to try to disrupt and distract the viewer. I think that's why it's so important to me for my painting to feel authentic or mine, because often what I mask of my own personality is evident in painting, and what I distract from in painting is more evident in myself, although sometimes I play around with this too.

ACN:How has your creative process changed over the years?

LH:My practice has a tide or a repetitive flow of sorts. Nothing is static and nothing stops. There's a repetitive transition between drawing and painting and not painting at all. I definitely value the time where I force myself not to paint, and that's something I have started doing in the last few years. The tension between myself and painting builds in this time and it's important to use it to notice how I relate to my external environment so that I can then learn how to relate to the painting’s environment in the same way. It gives an immediacy. I guess that the process of making works has stayed fairly consistent because the context in which I make them is constantly changing. If anything, I would say that I am working slower, or in real time. I think I used to make work that was trying to be ahead of the time that I needed to live and collect the experiences that fuel it, so my paintings now feel richer in their content.

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ACN:How has your artwork evolved since you first started making art?

LH:I’ve made a definite switch from thinking about the surface of the canvas to thinking about paintings as a space. I’m interested in the space between the surface of the canvas and the surface of the paint. What happens in there? How can I use paint to manipulate how much of this space is visible? My painting has become much more conceptual - I consider painting to be an ambiguous space, both internal and external to the canvas and I like being able to pull and push things in and out. I am constantly learning about paint as I'm painting so I think I'm now able to be more purposeful and considerate when I'm making work. I’m really grateful for the fact that I was able to really immerse myself in painting at the RCA for two years - I don't think I realised how great painting could be until I moved to London for my MA. If you want a really pedantic answer to that question then i’d say that there wasn’t a point where I started to make art so I can't really answer. (Almost) everyone makes some kind of art when they’re a kid and I’ve just never stopped, despite the fact that I used to be really terrible at it!

ACN:What inspired you to become an artist?

LH:I don’t like being told what to do! In painting I can make and break my own rules and I am always right, even when I am wrong.

I find it bizarre when people expect me to be able to reel off a string of names to answer questions like this one because it implies that they want to know whose work I want my own to be like. I don't like that dynamic

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ACN:Are there any particular artists or movements that have greatly influenced your work? In what way?

LH:I find it bizarre when people expect me to be able to reel off a string of names to answer questions like this one because it implies that they want to know whose work I want my own to be like. I don't like that dynamic, but obviously there is a long list of names. I’ve been working hard to make work that feels more adjacent to myself - painting which I trust enough to put out there as an extension of myself so it's about approach and philosophy rather than anything visual. I've been turning more to the ways that painting exists now, and what it could be. I love painting because it's still happening now. The painters I find influence from are painters who I think see painting or use painting in a similar way to me, and the influences change all the time. My practice is fueled by the question ‘why do I paint’ so naturally I'm interested in that conversation around painting.

ACN:How did you arrive at your style?  What can you tell us about your individual style and visual language?

LH:The work for my current solo show, ‘I Am In Ostrich’, finally feels like it is mine. I’ve been spending the last year partly ‘de-art schooling’  the way that I see making work. I want my painting to be fun. That's the first thing I decided about this show. It's filled to the brim with colour, stories, dance, humour and music.As for ‘visual language’, I don’t like that descriptor. I’m really interested in the relationship between language and painting (I wrote my dissertation on it), and this really influences my practice. Language and painting are not interchangeable, not part of the same genres, don’t function in the same ways, and painting does not correspond to a ‘visual language’. Painting does not have a ‘language’.

ACN:How do you select your themes?

LH:I don't select themes and my work doesn't really have themes. I don't want my painting to ever get stuck being about one thing because I can never just do one thing at a time, ever! When I make paintings about painting itself there's a freedom to it, where I can be influenced by anything and everything that I have a temporary interest in. There's a constant flow of things in and out of the studio. The paintings become a point of collection. I use my phone to record anything I find interesting or funny, often things in liminal or forgotten spaces, and they make their way into my work when I find things I repeatedly think about. I have a collection of sound clips, photos, writing, objects, memories etc. that I use as a starting point for making work.

ACN:What has been the most rewarding part of your career as a studio artist?

LH:I wish I knew… I’m only just starting out. I guess just being able to paint is rewarding enough. It's such a privileged thing. Realistically I've achieved more than I used to ever think I would be able to do as a painter, so I now make work with a kind of freedom in knowing this and I like that.

ACN:Please tell us about your latest body of work

LH:I’ve been finding joy in impossible aims. I always like asking too much from painting. I like asking ridiculous questions. It's fun to reach for the stars and then crash back to reality. I’ve been thinking about what I want painting to be, and have been gathering a list of experiences that have felt the same way that I want painting to feel like. I want my paintings to feel like watching clouds, dancing in the street at midnight, throwing grapes onto a barbecue, or cooking without a recipe. My recent paintings are an attempt to recreate the mood of these things and translate them all into a new coherent space. I want to know how can painting be a soup, and how that soup can fall from the sky? What does that look like as painting? What mood does it have? I’ve been aiming to find whatever ‘painting beyond itself’ actually is; Painting that is better than my last. I’ve made it a game to reassign meaning to this phrase. A puzzle with no real answers. I have wanted my recent painting to possess space that is both internal and external to the canvas. Every tiny weave of canvas in my painting arena has been considered. I’ve been aiming to use the canvas to my advantage, to trick the eye, to paint iridescently. I always methodically and metaphorically push my painting ‘off a cliff’. I ruin it so that I am faced with the challenge of saving it.

ACN:Do you have any upcoming exhibitions or projects that you are excited about?

LH:My second solo show ‘I Am In Ostrich’ is open at D Contemporary and runs until mid November. I’m also hoping to curate an exhibition in the next year. I think that'll be my next project.

ACN:What do you think is the most important aspect of creating successful artwork?

LH:It depends what the definition of success is. That doesn’t really mean anything universally. Successful painting for me is painting that feels authentic. I created a list at the start of my current body of work for what I want my exhibition to be, so I guess it's successful if I've ticked some of these criteria?...

I want the show to be immersive

I want the show to be delicate and classy but the painting to be somewhat agressive

I want the show to be funny

I want the show to be purple and green and pink and orange

I want to be able to scavenge for things

I want the show to be full of distractions and disruptions

I want the show to be better than my last

I want the show to be about clouds being a way of remembering things

I want the show to be bitty

I want the show to be monumentalI want the show to be iridescent

I want the painting to bleed I want the paintings to have ************ and **********  in it

I want the show to have the narrative of an album

I want you to be able to feel a consciousness

I want it to be luminous I want it to be sincere

ACN:Describe your process of creating a new artwork from concept to completion.

LH:My latest body of work started with a routine. I started making things in the afternoon in the studio until it got to sunset and then I'd go outside to the river and think about what I wanted painting to be. I always take photos, make sound recordings, and lists of things I find interesting or things that disrupt my routine (nothing genuinely exciting, just things like a specific cloud, green tiles, the idea of climbing a mountain, a certain song, part of a map…) so I can go back to them. I also spent quite a lot of time drawing out in train stations, cafes, and airports at the start of this project. It's a case of trusting the process to be honest - I have to trust that an idea will come to me before I run out of time. Often I’ll have big ideas or ambitious plans at the end of this stage.

ACN:What is your favourite medium to work with? Please tell us a bit about how the medium influences or supports the ideas behind your work

LH:Painting, of course! I like the limitlessness of painting. I like that however ridiculous I can make my prompt for painting, there's always a way of making the practice/medium flexible enough to answer it. I’ve made paintings about what it would be like to eat time, about what it would be like if I could walk inside a painting, or what if painters worked like choreographers or chefs. I like how ontological painting is. I like how through its own futility I can find purpose in it. I like that it's never static, that the conversation is always changing, that even after every possibility in painting has been achieved there's still a conversation about it. I like the tension there is between me and the canvas. I like how funny painting is.

ACN: Are there any techniques you have developed that you use consistently in your artwork?

LH: I consistently use translucent layers of paint. Working to thin down oils with different mediums, layers and consistencies means that I can control (partly), how the paint interacts with the canvas. I can paint so that the colour sits within the grain of the canvas, and then leave another colour just on the surface. I like to be able to use this to play with the depth and space of the painting. I want to make painting that's almost iridescent.

ACN:What has been the most memorable artwork you have created? What makes this piece memorable?

LH:I find it difficult to separate out works I have made, as the product is secondary to the thought process so I group paintings together a lot . (The gap between thought and paintings as physical objects has become less recently, and I value the painting more than I used to). 5 years ago, I made a painting with a bike-wheel attached to it and I spent ages trying to make the bike-wheel spin so that the painting was a measure of time by counting the rotations of the bike-wheel. You were only allowed to look at the painting through a traffic cone. I once made life-size fabric mannequins of myself and took them to the bank. It feels a bit naff now but that's what came to mind. I did like those paintings and I wish I could be as care-free about it as I was then, but it was before a time where I actually knew how to paint.

ACN:What was the most challenging piece you have ever created? How much do you think the effort you put into creating a work is important vs the idea behind it?

LH:I often find it most challenging to create work when I have big ideas that I commit to before thinking about the practicalities. The dance-floor in my solo show is a good example of this. I knew from the beginning that I wanted to have a dance-floor and a vision of what I wanted it to look like but the reality has involved over six months of making ceramic tiles, 8 kiln firings, approximately 144 resin pours, 1 week of sanding and 2 days of polishing and varnishing. It's often the time and physical effort that I underestimate in making larger paintings or bigger projects. Especially when I insist on doing everything myself. Doing everything myself is really important to me so that I can feel some value in what I've made. Can you tell us a bit about a few specific pieces you have created that you are particularly proud of?I find it difficult to pick out specific pieces that I'm proud of, but I'm proud of the fact that I’m able to be headstrong - I make my paintings for myself, in the way that I want to, because I want to, and that's enough. There is so much pressure, and even temptation, to lose some of that or change the way I'm working to fit in with what other people think good painting is, or what painting should be. I’ve learnt to trust the process, and to trust myself.

ACN:Please tell us about the particular materials or techniques you use to create your artwork and how they influence your work and practice?

LH:Before I even start painting, it's important for me to take time to draw or to make prints. Drawing has become so important to me recently - I use drawing to think through ideas, think through space, shape, colour etc., and to record ideas quickly to get them out of my head. Drawing is a chance to amalgamate everything. I usually use watercolour paints to draw with as you can use them in a way that's really similar to oil paint. Either that or I like drawing with really cheap materials. I often just go and buy a really rubbish set of felt tips or oil pastels so that I loosen up and it doesn’t matter what the drawing looks like. I always make drawings that are A5 or A6 so that I can push as much into a small space as I can. I find challenge in the process of scaling these up to become the groundwork for my paintings, and expanding the space.

ACN:Are there any techniques or materials you would like to learn how to use in the future?

LH:If there's ever anything I can’t do, I want to learn how to use it. I want to be able to do everything and anything. I am always curious about making pigments from scratch but I've never committed to doing this - apart from blue, one time.

ACN:Are there any projects or themes you would like to explore in the future?

LH:My next project is probably going to be about walking up hills. I’m excited to get back to drawing again soon too. I have an old book of titles I like to draw in/over and I want to fill up the pages.

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I think skill is less important than routine. Time is the most valuable thing in making work. Even just making time in your head to think through ideas, or going to see exhibitions counts.

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ACN:What do you think is the most important skill a studio artist should have?

LH:I think skill is less important than routine. Time is the most valuable thing in making work. Even just making time in your head to think through ideas, or going to see exhibitions counts. Time translates into a kind of space for making. I’ve learned to use routine to stay immersed in painting. I’m trying to adapt my routine so that I can have the same approach to painting as I do for the outside world; so that my studio practice goes beyond the walls of the studio. Routine allows me to maintain a stamina for painting.

ACN:What do you think has been the biggest challenge in your creative career?

LH:I found it really challenging to move to London to do my MA straight out of my first degree. I was so inexperienced and one of the youngest there. I felt like I had to catch up to everyone else. Navigating the art world but also standing my ground and voicing my opinions on its problems is difficult when I rely on it to an extent. I’m always conscious that there's a dilemma of how and where I can/should contribute to the art world.

ACN:What advice would you give to aspiring studio artists?

LH:Don't make work with the intention of it being just for other people. Go to see as many exhibitions as you can. Trust the process. Don’t be afraid to say no to things or people. Don't let people walk all over you. And do what you enjoy!

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I AM IN OSTRICH runs through November 16th at D Contemporary, 23 Grafton Street W1S 4EY.

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