LAURA HOLMES
Laura Holmes (b. 2000, Norwich) is a British contemporary painter based in London. She completed her Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Fine Art at De Montfort University in Leicester in 2021, and subsequently pursued postgraduate studies at the Royal College of Art (RCA), graduating from the Painting programme in 2023. Holmes’ work has been the subject of both solo and group exhibitions across the UK, including her first solo presentation Colour Of A Bruise in London (2022) and more recent exhibitions at D Contemporary and other London venues. Her work is held in private and public collections in the UK, the Netherlands, and Nigeria..
Holmes’ practice is deeply reflexive, rooted in an ongoing investigation of the material and conceptual nature of painting itself. Her work emerges through a process that blurs the boundary between making and thinking — where colour, memory, observed phenomena, and intuitive play coalesce into dynamic, large-scale canvases. She employs oil and oilstick, often treating paint as both substance and idea, pursuing what she describes as a space “internal and external to the canvas.” In her own words, painting is an arena in which she continually tests balance, control, intuition, and failure — likening her engagement with paint to cooking, and the creative act to a rhythmic, immersive routine.
Holmes’ work is characterized by its visceral sense of movement and colour, its layered gestures, and a conceptual framework that interrogates how paint both reveals and obscures. Across her practice, she integrates objects, memories, and fragments of experience into her compositions, treating the surface of the canvas as a site of sedimentation and reanimation. Her paintings invite viewers to consider not simply what they depict, but how they were brought into being — an exploration of the very ontology of painting itself.
Through exhibitions, studio projects, and critical engagement with painting’s possibilities, Laura Holmes is establishing herself as a thoughtful voice within the current British art scene, contributing to ongoing dialogues around abstraction, materiality, and artistic process.
SELECTED WORKS
EXHIBITIONS
18 OCTOBER- 16 NOVEMBER 2024
D CONTEMPORARY
Holmes uses her practice to explore and investigate her relationship with painting itself. Her work unravels experiences, observations, objects, and memories, which she extends beyond the canvas. It's a compulsion, kept in check by a set of rules, thoughts, and rituals surrounding painting.
She makes paintings about the way that she makes paintings, but she makes her paintings as if they are sculptures. This is the only thing she can sustain enough interest in to propel her practice. She challenges painting.
17 NOVEMBER-9 DECEMBER 2023
D CONTEMPORARY
D Contemporary is pleased to present ‘The Butterfly Effect’, a group exhibition featuring three emerging UK-based female painters Laura Holmes, Martha Lamont, and Lydia Makin.
In reference to the Butterfly Effect, the exhibition explores concepts of self-transformation through the combination of abstract art and chaos. Symbolizing the dynamic of the collaborative creative process in people and communities, gestures work as powerful cultivators and catalysts for nonlinear effects and self-transformations.
11 MAY - 6 JUNE 2023
D CONTEMPORARY
D Contemporary is pleased to present Adjacent Colours, a group show featuring paintings and sculptures from five artists graduating this year.
By bringing together five post-graduate artists, Adjacent Colours aims to create a constructive interaction of colour and form while shaping a supportive network for emerging artists on their first steps at the London art scene. In keeping with our mission to promote future talents, Adjacent Colours is a part of our annual exhibition program featuring the work of the UK's most promising emerging artists. With subtle allusions to memories and the seductiveness of colour, the artists are presenting their thematics through their own unique style, narrative, and lyricism.
