Desirée Holman (born 1974) is an American artist who is based in the Bay Area, California.

Education and career

Desiree Holman received her master's degree from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

and her Bachelor of Fine Arts from

California College of the Arts The California College of the Arts (CCA) is a private art school in San Francisco, California. It was founded in Berkeley, California in 1907 and moved to a historic estate in Oakland, California in 1922. In 1996, it opened a second campus in ...

. She was among the 2008

SECA Art Award The SECA Art Award is a contemporary art award program that has been organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) and supported by its auxiliary SECA (Society for the Encouragement of Contemporary Art) since 1967 to honor San Fran ...

winners from the

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern art, modern and contemporary art museum and nonprofit organization located in San Francisco, California. SFMOMA was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th-century art ...

as well as 2007 winner of the Artadia: Fund for Art and Dialogue award. Holman is an interdisciplinary artist that pulls from pop culture among other things to explore personal and visual histories. Some of her solo exhibitions include the

Hammer Museum The Hammer Museum, which is affiliated with the University of California, Los Angeles, is an art museum and cultural center known for its artist-centric and progressive array of exhibitions and public programs. Founded in 1990 by the entrepreneur- ...

in Los Angeles, and the

Berkeley Art Museum The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA, formerly abbreviated as BAM/PFA) are a combined art museum, repertory movie theater, and film archive associated with the University of California, Berkeley. Lawrence Rinder was Director ...

’s MATRIX program. Holman’s work has been internationally recognised at the

Sao Paulo Museum of Modern Art SAO or Sao may refer to: Places * Sao civilisation, in Middle Africa from 6th century BC to 16th century AD * Sao, a town in Boussé Department, Burkina Faso * Serb Autonomous Regions (''Srpska autonomna oblast'', SAO), during the breakup of Y ...

, Hessel Museum,

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) is a multi-disciplinary Contemporary art, contemporary arts center in San Francisco, California, United States. Located in Yerba Buena Gardens, YBCA features visual art, performance, and film/video that cel ...

, di Rosa, Milan’s BnD, and Toronto’s YYZ. Her work is represented by Aspect/Ratio in Chicago, IL.

Themes

Holman artwork explores a variety of mediums such as drawings, sculpture, photography and video. Her work often combines all of these in low-fi video productions that involve masks, costumes, and the choreography of multiple participants. Holman’s work is concerned with the performance of identity, alternative realities, and the relationship between self and other.

Exhibitions

In 2002, Holmans work was involved in a group exhibition entitled "Seamless: A New Breed of Fashion Show," hosted by the

and co-produced by ADHOC. The exhibition included six multidisciplinary artists/designers who all showed new work. In 2009, her work was shown in Los Angeles in the exhibition ‘Hammer Projects: Desirée Holman.’ Holman's project,‘Reborn,’ featured drawings, three-channel video installation and sculpture. The work was inspired by a subculture of women (primarily in the U.S. and Great Britain) called ‘ reborners’ who care for incredibly lifelike baby dolls, bathing and feeding them as they would a real infant. Holman created her own realistic dolls and drew

Mary Cassatt Mary Stevenson Cassatt (; May 22, 1844June 14, 1926) was an American painter and printmaker. She was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania (now part of Pittsburgh's North Side (Pittsburgh), North Side), but lived much of her adult life in France, whe ...

inspired images of mothers and their babies. The exhibition was organized by Hammer Curator Ali Subotnick. In 2011, Holman's exhibition ‘Heterotopias’ was shown as part of the MATRIX 238 program at the

Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA, formerly abbreviated as BAM/PFA) are a combined art museum, repertory movie theater, and film archive associated with the University of California, Berkeley. Lawrence Rinder was Director ...

. The exhibition included drawings and video. Holman had nine performers imagine alternate identities to create an avatar, or surrogate self, for which she then created props and costumes. Performers used the props and costumes to act out their character in a choreographed music video. She then had each performer fully rendered as a 3-D model in a virtual gamescape. The exhibition was curated by Phyllis Wattis MATRIX Curator Elizabeth Thomas with Dena Beard, Assistant Curator.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Holman, Desiree 1974 births Living people