“Set”

Tank Shanghai is pleased to announce the first painting exhibition in Asia by Swiss artist Deborah-Joyce Holman in March, titled "Set". The exhibition will showcase the artist Deborah’s latest large-scale canvas works.

Paintings all depict domestic interior spaces. These images are sourced from films and series, and depict scenic vignettes of intentional sets, the domestic spaces belong to fictional black lesbian and queer characters. Though they are not in sight of the camera and therefore also absent in the paintings.

Deborah-Joyce Holman’s work sits in the tensions between the value and dangers of visibility and representation.

Permanent Rebellion

2024

Oil and pencil on canvas

210 x 130 cm

©️ Jack Elliot Edwards （photographer）

Brewster Place

2024

Oil and pencil on canvas

210 x 130 cm

©️ Jack Elliot Edwards （photographer）

Deborah-Joyce Holman's practice is concerned with the relationship between popular visual cultures and capital and the intertwined politics of representation. They are interested in the exploitative potential of how images collide with capital, and contrast this with approaches of artistic and cinematic subversion, repetition and refusal.

Deborah-Joyce Holman is a non-binary multidisciplinary artist born in Basel in 1991 and currently based in London, UK, and Basel, Switzerland. Deborah-Joyce Holman obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Art from Haute École des Arts et de Design of Geneva (HEAD) in 2018. In 2019-2020, they participated in the CAMPUS independent study program at Nottingham Contemporary.

Deborah-Joyce Holman lives and works between London, UK and Basel, Switzerland. Their ongoing practice of painting, moving image, sound and installation explores the relationship between Black and queer contemporary and antecedent visual cultures capital and the intertwined politics of representation. They contrast this with approaches of artistic and cinematic subversion, repetition and refusal.

Supported by Pro Helvetia Shanghai, the Swiss Arts Council