Jocelyn Holmes

My process explores representation, abstraction, and surface manipulation as a manifestation of phenomenological experience. The evolution of my process from realism to abstraction explores visual metaphors as expressions of lived experience in relation to the geo-socio-political situations that shape my reality. I explore the relationship between body, mind, and the material world, and the possibility of communicating the incommunicable aspects of physiological experiences, of abjection, pain, and loss, asking: how can aesthetic practices convey phenomena through invented symbolism, visual metaphors, and vibrant media?

            The concept of vibrant media emerges in my work through elements that hold meaning and serve as material archives of experience, such as fabric and paper. Additive and subtractive mixed-media processes employ such media to explore absence and presence, creating a self-referential entanglement of form, content, and subject. In my most recent work, methods of obscuring and excavation create layers of meaning not only for what remains visible but also for the lingering traces of what is lost. Through processes of drawing, collaging, encaustic, printmaking, and painting, I draw on memory, evoking a sense of nostalgia and obscuring the boundaries between what is real, what is imagined, and the potentialities that might be envisioned for the future.