NIGHT RUN
Ashley Berlin e.v
04.20.18, Berlin
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With NIGHT RUN, Holmes displays works made from the raw materials such as glass, leather and silver. Packages formed from blown glass bring to mind the idea of containment and act as vessels, suggestive only by their abstract and hollow shaping. One can gaze at these fragile parcels, wondering what they may have contained or been moulded from while bearing in mind the paradoxes thrown up by a series of objects that are at once 'enceinte', solid, and open-ended but also are as delicate and brittle as their material. They are like wrapped up moments from a life, warped along the way to reveal within their fragile vacuum a space occupied as memory and published in a form that remains arcane.
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The work Silver Strand is an exploration and representation of a character. It tells the story of a enlightened weathered soul from Scotland named Truly. Clipped like a strand of hair and cast in silver, it is both a monument and an homage, paying tribute to a series of fleeting encounters with a stranger. Psychological vibrations are noted then folded back into life again, and are here represented by a lithe strand of pure silver that is sanded down and refined by the artist.
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Haiku-like and with traces of an unconscious only slightly revealed, Holmes' leather and glass poems are utterances of actions based in thought. They are personified observations, conversational debris and quotidian background noise.
On opening night, Holmes’ presented a reading of her written poetry from a selection of characters and scenarios that inspired and informed the exhibition.
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This exhibition is supported by the Canadian Embassy in Berlin.
POEMS FOR NIGHT RUN
It rained every day, with sleek, sniping blades of rain, propelled by Siberian winds
winds similar in strength to that of a professional salon-grade hair dryer the size of Pluto, blowing competitively
or that ride at carnivals called “The Gravitron,” in which one voluntarily spins around in circles so fast that the body starts to levitate, scaling up and down the interior of the contraption's walls
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Eventually things calm down, the weather changes, and there's a slight progression of ease
clouds part with good sportsmanship after a tumultuous conflict
moving forward, seasons change, and everything else
the familiar utterance, if only for the better, is anticipated.
Things turn primal when bad weather rises
It's a difficult translation
loads of misunderstandings between everyone and everything
a red-light emergency reaction of fight or flight
The weather in Glasgow today is in a psychological state.
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Gliding across ferocious flooded puddles inhabiting the sidewalks
curdled in exiled exhaust from cars and bedazzled by oil leaks trickling along roads like strands of gothic saltwater pearls
there is an enchanting, lithe figure trailing through the rain
down a straight road, straight as an arrow...just like their motives
Their name is Truly
They are spectacular
Back and forth and back and forth they go, everyday, all day
stitching the pavement with their worn rubber feet holding the streets together with hope through miles
they do what it takes to make ends meet
they always wear a timely trench coat in the colour of bone, taupe or wedgewood blue
oversized and with a slight pearl sheen embedded in the pigment
wrapped crisscross arms belt the scotchgard drapery
an elegant editorial glide down Argyle Street
They taught themself how to face bad weather head on
Truly struts their stride in a trail of trench while maintaining a smile that stretches right up to Inverness
They soldier on with a fierce gust of wind cutting through their long historic strands of hair
silver strands of hair stray and glisten from the rain, in the sun and moonlight
and during overcast skies their silver braided tales enrichen everyone and everything
Even when in the thick of the most patronizing monochrome dismal day
radiant light beams out of their glistening salty blue eyes
Truly makes conversation
and asks questions about others and geography
Life hasn't exactly worked out accordingly for Truly
but those aren't the tales they use to fill wind in their sails
An integral salute
Two men in the distance are sitting on a park bench in Kelvingrove Park
the two are dressed in a sort of fisherman-thrash attire
one younger and in scraggs of black, neat around the edges, refined rebellion
which claims he rocked the cradle
but now the baby sleeps
The other man, old and weathered from slated rain and liver pangs
is sitting in a 'rightfully so' position, wearing a matured sandy brown and pea green plaid hunting fleece and a brown lambswool ear flap hat
he nudges his mate as the girl draws nearer from the distance
and he locks her down with his timeless, busted, confident gaze
An old weathered slatted man stands up in the midst of an isolated beam of sunshine.
waving for her attention with his severe charisma
She takes her headphones off, offering her attention
His bottom jaw hangs heavy; his gold grill glistens
and he sings
"With your long blonde hair
and your eyes of blue
the only thing I ever got from you
was sorrrrrrrrrrrow
...sorrrrrrrrrrowwwwww"
She looks at him with a talcum smile
grabs his historic plaid arm
stares him dead in the eye
and says,
"Thank you... Thank you for that."
He stands quiet for a split second and smiles, revealing a pure golden grill
then sits down and continues to roll a cig with his pal
and she walks on with reassuring tones of unwashed tales and a melody in mind
translate that kind of mechanical energy into gales of natural wind power.
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