Louisiana-born, Dallas-based artist Jammie Holmes creates stirring figurative paintings that “capture contemporary Black family life in the Deep South, meditating on ritual and tradition… [and] darker themes of suppression and fear in disenfranchised communities”, writes Jessica Klingelfuss for Elephant
. Many of these centre on Thibodaux, the city where he grew up, and the backdrop of this emotive image. There, mourners often make black T-shirts “emblazoned with a portrait of their deceased loved ones and the words ‘Rest in Peace’”. In this work, however, Holmes has left the T-shirts blank for viewers to contemplate their own losses. “I need them to feel the painting,” Holmes tells Klingelfuss, “because I want them to experience what I felt when I was creating the art.”
