By James Brewer
Laura Holmes, a London-based painter, cooks up a feast of wild colouration, as is to be seen in her latest exhibition outing. She is one of four contemporary artists whose work is shown alongside legendary figures (one of them David Hockney, still very much alive and working furiously at the age of 87), in a show titled Geist: Between Legacy and Becoming.
The aim of this display at D Contemporary gallery in the West End is to orchestrate a “compelling dialogue” between young contemporary visionaries and iconic masters. It is a reminder that a profusion of experiments and styles have erupted in the wake of the heydays of the ‘greats.’
Laura is renowned for her dynamic large-scale canvases that derive from the interplay of her physical presence with the medium of paint. The way she puts it sometimes is to imagine the act of painting “was a soup and I was the chef. My art is like cooking, taking things from here and there,” said Laura, who was wearing a T-shirt declaring she was “the only female artist in this exhibition.”
She vigorously engages with the canvases in her studio and will mercilessly drag paint off the canvas and then put it back on. That almost sculptural process she sees as like pushing a painting off a cliff, “sabotaging my own painting in a way;” or, to put it more prosaically, constantly questioning and redefining her practice to create authentic and engaging works.
She feels an affinity with the River Thames, and spends time drawing, painting there. “Every day, I walk to the river and take pictures of the water.”
Laura earned her BA (Hons) in Fine Art from De Montfort University, Leicester, in 2021, and completed an MA in Painting at the Royal College of Art in 2023, having the previous year already had her inaugural solo exhibition, at Bermondsey Project Space, with a further solo in 2024 at D Contemporary. To see her pieces now displayed in the same room as some of the most famed exponents of the 20th and 21st centuries was somewhat “surreal.”
D Contemporary said that in Geist it was bringing together Laura Holmes, Daniel Roibal, Igor Dobrowolski, and Marc-Aurèle Debut alongside Hockney, Keith Haring and Andy Warhol, investigating the evolving spirit of artistic expression, history, and transformation.
Curator Jonathan Fakinos said the project was Inspired by Hegel’s dialectical concept of Geist—the unfolding spirit that shapes history through contradiction, synthesis, and renewal. The four young artists who were “both inheritors and challengers of an established visual lexicon offer new perspectives that respond to, reinterpret, and sometimes disrupt the legacies” of their seniors. Through painting and sculptural installation, the exhibition navigated the interplay between past and present, tradition and innovation, individual expression and collective memory.
Igor Dobrowolski creates multi-layered works that contrast Western consumerism with its “devastating effects” on the environment and communities in other parts of the world and force us to negotiate our personal position within it. Igor’s practice is rooted in the visual influences of his childhood environment and hometown of Jelenia Góra in southwestern Poland, and of the likes of Salvador Dali and MC Escher. Following the death of more than 1,000 workers in a factory collapse in Bangladesh he launched an independent billboard campaign focusing on the harmful effects of the fast fashion industry. A further campaign called Christmas in Yemen consisted of artworks juxtaposing images of consumerism with scenes of poverty and war. His works are included in the collections of celebrities including Nicole Scherzinger, Channing Tatum and Gigi Hadid. Igor’s work in the Geist show was in oil on canvas, and entitled Mury (walls).
Daniel Roibal, who hails from Mallorca, is continuing his artistic journey in London. Having travelled in more than 30 countries he draws inspiration from diverse landscapes and cultures. His work aims to transport viewers to untamed and natural environments. He was showing his 2023 large canvas in oil, acrylic and charcoal Republica bananera, from a series entitled Here Today, Gone Tomorrow; and a smaller work in oil and acrylic, Jardin con una rosa.
Inspired by medical studies, philosophical and artistic theories, Marc-Aurèle Debut is a London-based French conceptual sculptor, who investigates through tangible works the connection between the body, objects, and physical space. This includes the currency of the body within queer communities. In his brand-new work Reclaimed, five bio-resin discs carry epithets used to describe gay individuals. The discs are made from strawberry pre-workout powder, pink lemonade BCAA protein powder, bubble gum creatine (sports supplement) powder, raspberry whey protein powder with fine oats, and vanilla whey protein powder with fine oats.
The exhibition was presented jointly with Princedale Modern, a London-based art advisory specialising in high-end secondary market private sales, with a focus on post-war and contemporary art,
Geist: Between Legacy and Becoming is at London’s D Contemporary gallery, 23 Grafton Street, London W1, until May 3, 2025.
