A NEW art collection is coming to West Downs Gallery at the University of Winchester.

The exhibition, entitled Eternal verdure, was created by Jessica Holmes and will be at the gallery from Wednesday, April 5 to Tuesday, May 9.

The works on display are an investigation of The Grange at Northington, Hampshire, where plants were transplanted to the conservatory from their natural habitat by the botanist-adventurers of the 18th and 19th century. Plants which flowered at different times of year bloomed together in a state of perpetual spring, created by the new technologies, and recorded in the archive of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew. These plants left tropical jungles and arid mountainsides and were catalogued and ordered.

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Yet the plants in this work by Jessica are actively exploring, trying to find their ways around and through the paintings themselves. They sprout up through the composition to leave the work, negotiating the angles, holes and crevices to find the light, in a movement that records a pure wild state, beyond botanical analysis.

The paintings sit on the cusp of exterior and interior, as rambling vegetation and peeling, decaying surfaces are brought together in painting, borrowing from Dutch Vanitas painting and Japanese screen design.

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Jessica is inspired in her work by archival materials and historical sites, focussing on the point where the past invades the present, questioning memory and interpretation.

Jessica Holmes lives and works in London. She studied at Wimbledon School of Art (1998-2002) and the Royal Academy Schools (2003-2006) and has exhibited extensively in the UK, as well as the USA, South Korea, France and Greece.

Further details about the exhibition can be found on the University of Winchester’s website: winchester.ac.uk/gallery.