The London based art practice of Andy Holmes focuses its research into aesthetic judgment intersecting with the premise that art is not the object but the subjective experience of an idea or event. The themes of the work are informed by the evolutionary conditions which determine the human relationship with the binary. Holmes is curious about how these sensory modes of complex perception processing can momentarily offer up possibilities for the emotional abstract and aesthetic response.
statement
"Exploring aesthetic judgement lies at the centre of my practice. Led by the examination of an idea that the aesthetic experience is delivered through the evolutionary perception system, my intention is for the audience to engage in an individualistic encounter with the work as an experience - because this is where the meaning of the work resides - not in the material piece itself.
Through the mediums of immersive video and sound installations, paintings and site specific sculpture, the work adopts the language of the strong sensory stimulators of binary contrast and camouflage. These shapes and edges disrupt the information that our primal system processes as it forms a perception of reality from the noise of the Anthropocene dawn and which is momentarily responsible for inducing the aesthetic and spiritual experience.
My work performs this function by stripping away figuration and information of the identifiable object or act and, by removing distractions of the known reality, it offers up possibilities for the emotional abstract response. And the site, has become as important as the object I make, in that they both acknowledge the ritualistic and revered spaces in the built and natural landscape because the contextualisation and installation of the work is validation of its authenticity.
Investigating the emotional and cognitive responses of aesthetic perception is central to my art practice. Even though we understand the different contexts of what art can be and how we experience it, if we can feel an artwork is speaking to us, it’s probably because we’ve found its soul."
Andy Holmes, Chelsea College of Arts, UAL 2020