Ash Homes: Vessels

A vessel is never only an object.

It might be a body, a home, a relationship, a family history or a story handed from one generation to the next. In her fourth solo exhibition with the gallery, Ash Holmes builds a body of painting around a deceptively simple question — what holds us?

Camouflage runs through the work, inherited rather than borrowed: Holmes’ great-grandmother was commissioned to produce camouflage swatches during the Second World War. In Vessels it moves away from concealment and towards something else — a meditation on visibility and protection, and on the ways women have historically adapted themselves to the spaces around them.

Several works are painted onto upcycled sailcloth, drawing on the artist’s lifelong connection to sailing and the ocean. Weathered, travelled and marked by use, the cloth arrives with a history already attached. Rather than beginning with a blank canvas, Holmes works with a surface that has already lived a life.

The paintings are shown alongside functional sculptural works by Nathan Martin of Saturday Yard Work — the everyday object as one more thing built to contain, support and sustain.

Ash Holmes: Vessels opens at HAKE House of Art on Friday 9th October and runs until 24th October.