Val Holmes: Legacy Impressions

Lace Study II, Val Holmes. All images courtesy of the artist.

Textile artist Val Holmes is currently exhibiting at The Knitting & Stitching Show at Harrogate Convention Centre. We talked to her about her show, Legacy Impressions. Working with various methods of printing, mostly digital but also collagraph, lithograph, mono printing and screen printing, Val has explored in these embroidered works aspects of female heritage.

Describe what Legacy Impressions means to you.

This work is a culmination of so many of my techniques and of my concerns and desire to celebrate or call attention to certain aspects of my experiences as a woman. From Eve to the present day woman, her past and present, sexuality and fecundity, modesty, guilt and desire are explored. Presented in gardens or amongst flowers, the garden excluded for Eve becomes flowers as the representation of femininity inculcated into our very being.

Suzanne without the elders, Val Holmes.

The works also thread a way through the textile heritage that is present in many women’s lives. Be it in the family as with skills handed down through generations, or in the workplace as we mourn the textile industry in many areas of the UK and France. Here the work is posed as a remembrance of essential textile techniques such as weaving, knitting, lace making and embroidery. The images are larger than life or intimate, sorrowful in remembrance or joyful in celebration.

Eve I (detail), Val Holmes.

Where can people see your work in person and online?

As well as the Knitting & Stitching Show, people will be able to see my work in person in the new gallery, Fil et Encre, 29 rue du Marché, La Flotte. Online at my website and you can also see me talking about this exhibition on the Arnold's Attic Youtube channel.

Val Holmes’s Legacy Impressions is at The Knitting & Stitching Show at Harrogate Convention Centre, Harrogate until 1st December 2019.