Audrey Holmes
Main Gallery | 3-30 November 2026
These paintings seek to understand the role of trees as places of transition where we step from our mundane world full of cares and demands into one that goes a little deeper. The way trees are connected to each other, to their landscape, and to the living things around them opens up other worlds. The space thus created is both sacred and freely accessible. Embracing the full nature of trees means we feel a little more, see a little more, and become a little more than we were before. Each piece in this collection offers an entry point to a space where hidden things are made visible.
Trees may not talk as we do, but they communicate with one another and their environment through complex exchanges of nutrients and information that occur deep in the earth and extend to the tips of their leaves. We are part of this living communication physically, spiritually, and though our history. When you stand barefoot on the roots of a tree and press your hands to the trunk, you can feel the deep pulse of energy that connects it within itself, with its companions, and with the very heartbeat of the earth. This is how these paintings came to be.
The trees portrayed in this collection were taken from various sketchbooks that were filled up over the years with countless drawing of trees from places I’ve lived or visited, or derived from sketches based on tree photos that were kindly shared with me. As I flicked through hundreds of drawings, something about a tree or group of trees caught my eye because it seemed to hint at (or more openly reveal) more than what was on the page. They spoke to me, and I hope that in turn they speak to you.
Free PDF catalogue: https://www.audreyholmesart.com/catalogue-download
About the artist
Audrey paints and dreams in her tree house studio in rural Manawatu. She paints things glimpsed from the corner of the eye, half-forgotten dreams, and hazy memories of the collective unconscious. She believes in many different planes of existence and does not believe that time is linear.
