Mobile Studio with Dale Holmes
Dale began our lecture with some writings he had done, that for him, resonates with his passion for cycling and his art both of which he’s combined into a mobile studio. Dale had a film of himself reading his writings they are called ‘When we go out to meet the man with the hammer’ and ‘The stone that crashed into the kneecap was not moving’ whilst shaving his legs this was his way of connecting what he had written about. The film can be seen here https://www.daleholmes.co.uk/the-stone-that-crashed-into-the-kneecap Dale explained to us that the connection of sounds of the shaver being washed out against the metal bowl and the sound of the metal when the crash of the bike hit the ground. Cyclists have a reason for shaving their legs when racing, I don’t know why. This writing was based on the cyclist Phillippe Gilbert who crashed his bike on the Tour de France, in 2018, which made Dale imagine what had happened when the cyclist went over the wall and smashed his knee against the stone. These writings are in a book called ‘The Graveside Orations of Carl Einstein, by Dale Holmes and Sharon Kivland’. The stories connect performance art, folklore, object relations, endurance, and material experience he explained as a person being operated on.
During our lecture we were shown Dale’s bicycle that he had built, he had thought about what is within a studio and used the frame as a painting representing what would be in it and on it. For instance, a vase, paintings, and a plant, and he even used the badge insignia as an emblem. The bike (Studio) is called ‘The New Aspidistra’. This bike/studio is used when Dale as a destination with an initial idea but sometimes these ideas can lead to others whilst he’s out, he says psychedelics happen when he depletes his body from liquids which help with his art, he added that he rarely uses a camera but writes things down and takes them back and creates his artwork afterward. Dale does this when time allows with whatever resources he’s got available.
Dale went on to explain one day whilst he was out, he came across Grove Lawn Tennis Club, Huddersfield, from seeing this place at the time he was working with East Street Arts in Leeds and had the space, so he produced 12 large oil and acrylic paintings and exhibited them at the tennis club on the fencing around the court. Dale’s followers came to see the paintings alongside people who came on the tennis club’s open day on 12/09/21. Dale managed to do this by going down to see the club board members and showing a presentation of his works.
Professor Alex Coles added that what Dale is doing is moving back and forth between art and design and for further reading on this type of work studio for embodied practice, he recommended ‘The Creative Act by Marcel Duchamp’.
References:
https://www.daleholmes.co.uk/
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