ROAD WORK

This exhibition brings together sixteen large-scale prints taken from a series of 1000 polaroid photographs that the artist and former AA tutor Andrew Holmes took in 1980s Los Angeles, documenting the houses, cars, trucks and containers he observed, together with two of the original sets of images he made.

Andrew Holmes’s work deals with the unnoticed world: his subjects are set classically against azure skies, frozen like statues in a Renaissance garden. The images of assorted Americana captured during frequent trips across the country became the source material for the photorealist drawings for which he is best known. But the polaroids are also artworks in themselves, first shown in the exhibition Hundreds of Things at the AA in 1986 and revisited now through this display of prints and a new publication, ROAD WORK, featuring illustrations of 500 polaroid works and four pieces of original writing in the form of song lyrics. The resulting song Stack o’ Bricks, performed by Holmes’ band Alabama Chrome, will be heard in recorded form for the first time at his talk 'Follow Me To Pieland' at the AA on Thursday 30 April.

Andrew Holmes (b 1947) studied at the AA and was for many years an innovative and inspiring Diploma Programme unit master there. He is an internationally recognised photorealist artist who has made a lifelong contribution to contemporary art. In addition his work encompasses printmaking, photography, film, radio and design. He is Emeritus Professor of Architecture at Oxford Brookes University. He was formerly Guest Professor at the Technische Universitaet, Berlin, and a Visiting Scholar at the Getty Research Institute. He lives and works in London.

Image: Courtesy Andrew Holmes