Jeremy Holmes Solo Exhibit: Hardwoods

JEREMY HOLMES

Lanoue Gallery is pleased to present Hardwoods, a solo exhibition with sculptor Jeremy Holmes, opening Friday May 3^rd and running through Sunday, June 16^th.  In addition to wall, pedestal, and floor sculptures, Holmes will create a room-size installation work onsite in Lanoue’s brand new gallery addition, which has added 700 square feet of street-level exhibition space to the gallery.    

Holmes enjoys working with wood in less conventional ways in order to expand the form and function of this most practical of building materials.  He starts by using traditional woodworking techniques in order to make very thin boards.  For this exhibition, Holmes has chosen to work entirely with hardwoods, such as white ash, cherry, and black walnut, even combining the different woods in some of the same sculptures.  After the boards are made, he soaks them over a period of time in order to soften the wood just enough to allow him to bend the boards into abstract compositions.  Following this free-form bending process, he then joins and sands each sculpture into its final permanent and interconnected state.

Holmes describes the process of torqueing a raw, solid material like wood as somewhat random and uncertain.  Even as he is bending the wood in a particular direction, the exact outcome is never entirely certain.  While Holmes may start the sculpting process with an intention, he often allows for a certain amount of randomness to occur should a new idea overtake his original plan.    

Says Holmes, “With each finished sculpture, my own curiosity remains suspended in the completed piece, which keeps the creation of each work exciting for me.”   The end result for Holmes is that action, spontaneity, and improvisation can be combined with material and methodology in the quest for a beautiful art object. 

Jeremy Holmes currently lives and works in Ithaca, NY.   The gallery will host a reception for the artist, who will be in attendance, on Friday May 3^rd, 6 – 8 pm.