Holly Holmes' photostream  

For a few years or so, I’ve used the motifs of bird like figures to convey a human presence in my paintings, they help me to hone in on a subject. The child like story book birds are depicted engaged in very human activities to talk about topical issues. Composed in a fictional world the creatures have an independence where there is a dominant role played out. Recently I’ve started using less of the birds and let the surroundings speak for themselves. These landscapes and interiors represent a profound sense of unease brought on by the types of threats we perceive and experience. These paintings are allegories of apocalypse and destruction, brought on by excess, waste and the rapid change of our environment. The landscapes utilize naïve or awkward spatial relationships, elaborate designs that often create depth from flatness. I am interested in pushing this flatness to create visually unnerving compositions, so that the spaces have a kind of built in menace. I like to create awkward images that in some cases fight with each to create scenes that are otherworldly. My paintings present the “look” of co-existence, a façade of nature in idyllic harmony. Upon closer inspection the paintings represent a struggle between utopian impulses and dystopian reality. It is here in the middle that I manufacture images of anxiety and distress.

In the studio I work on several pieces at a time, usually in series drawing from a library of sketchbooks. Often I find myself thinking of the finished works as drawings, more so than paintings. I enjoy the immediacy of drawing and so I tend to work with acrylic paints / inks which dry quickly so I can rework compositions rapidly. I paint on a range of supports including canvas, rag board, paper and panel, sometimes I also work with encaustic on wood.

Where my paintings are poetic my work with collaborator Tom Burtonwood is very direct. As Burtonwood & Holmes we tackle warfare and material culture head on. Our installations and paintings have been exhibited widely in Chicago and overseas. We appropriate junk mail and other consumer adverts, remix them with camouflage and “wrap” the new patterns around sculptures of tanks, bombs and fighter aircraft. We are interested in making connections between the logistics of the grocery store and the supply lines of the battlefield.