Nina Holmes – Un|safe

Un|safe is a solo exhibition presented by Nina Holmes. The exhibition is an exploration of the tensions and anxieties, often taken for granted or ignored as the ‘norm’, through painting and mixed media works on varying scales. Nina has contemplated, through these works, notions of risk, safety, measures for protection and how we view the people and institutions that surround us. In some ways harking back to the stylistic and technical approach of impressionist painters as a kind of visual respite from the complexities and busyness of today’s world, she has juxtaposed contemporary clues and cues into each work that make them startlingly current. Un|safe forms a nuanced articulation of the blurry assumptions that shroud us in a kind of safety while maintaining the equal potential to trap us. Navigating these themes through traces, off cuts, stretched and un-stretched materials, Nina has formulated a series of paintings that are as challenging as they are aesthetic.

After a much loved Cape Town couple, who had been my neighbours, mysteriously disappeared earlier this year and were later found violently murdered in Natal, suspected to be in connection with an ISIS hit, the notion of random unsafety became personal. I set out to create a body of work that expressed both my panic at and frustration of the high risk and tension levels in which we live, generally in the world today and specifically in South Africa. I have referenced Impressionist Masters: Monet, Degas and Renoir who offer a slower, gentler respite to our post-modern state of pressurised social media, 24 hour accessibility, plastic, time compression, nuclear threat and digital explosion; to name a few. (Nina Holmes, 2018)

As a painter, Nina’s materials are never limited to canvas and oil, instead she works loosely and around expectations. Often using pieces of material or repurposed upholstery, the process of altering or intervening to create work is approached through what she terms as “surrealist automatism”, while also allowing for the inevitable influence of found images, photographs and borrowing of techniques and inspirations from other paintings. She enjoys working on multiple paintings, with work spread out across her studio in Woodstock. The working process is occasionally accompanied by a grand symphonic soundtrack and sometimes with silence. There is careful thinking and intense working through various influences and concepts. When talking about the intention and approach to this body of work, Nina explains her concerns that “even when we think we are protected and safe, we are not. The apparent healthy food we consume is riddled with chemicals, the holiday we take might end in violence and the people in whom we put our trust, betray us.” Un|safe as a body of work is complex and challenging in ways that extend beyond the comfortable colours, light and techniques of the impressionist-esque visuals. The work pushes the viewer to look further, to look through the pleasantries and floral motifs that are richly available in Nina’s plush and sumptuous palette, and to think further about what surrounds us in our daily lives, to recognize what is presented right before our eyes.

– Clare Patrick

Nina Holmes
Un|safe
2018
Acrylic & Oil on canvas
190 x 176 cm
SOLD

Nina Holmes
Nerve Agent(series)
2018
Oil on board
27 x 24.5 cm

Nina Holmes
Camouflage 2 & 1
2017
Oil on board
24 x 32.5 cm
(1)SOLD

Nina Holmes
Chapel Street
2018
Acrylic on Primed paper
97.5 x 91 cm

Nina Holmes
No Parking
2018
Acrylic & Oil on canvas
179 x 220 cm
SOLD