Laurel Holmes was born in Johannesburg in 1964. As an emerging artist, she left the corporate environment in 2012 to concentrate on art making and relocated from Johannesburg to Cape Town in 2016. Holmes’s painting training has been with Lowveld artist and educator Karin Daymond as well as Johannesburg-based Ricky Burnett. Over the past few years, printmaking became a new focus, through workshops at The Artists’ Press in 2013 and Sharon Sampson studio in 2014/5.
Laurel works mainly in oils on canvas and more recently, wax encaustic and mixed media. As a landscape, still life and abstract painter/printmaker, her inspiration is drawn from nature, influenced by her years spent in the Lowveld, as well as current proximity to the coast in Kommetjie. In 2021, Laurel was awarded her post graduate diploma completed at Michaelis School of Fine at the University of Cape Town.
“As a South African artist, my work is drawn from a strong attachment to this land, its sense of place and the life it supports. An interest in the indigenous flora of this country comes from generations of farming, plant propagation, and love for the beauty these natural forms offer. A deep love for nature and natural places, and acknowledgement of its role in spiritual restoration, strongly impacts my work.”