Installation view. Courtesy of Bureau, New York.

Installation view. Courtesy of Bureau, New York.

Currently on view at Bureau, New York Tom Holmes’ solo exhibition “Piss Yellow / Bars and Stars”. This exhibition present new large-scale painting and sculpture which feature exuberant pop references mixed with painterly abstraction and stoic minimalism, unified by the over-arching motif of funerary form. Holmes has been working for several years fluidly across mediums to create minimalist- inspired and pop-culture-infused funerary pieces. Working within a long art historical and anthropological tradition of funerary and memorial work, Holmes has been inspired by a wide range of burial practices. From lavish cemeteries in capitol cities to ephemeral tributes found in rural burial grounds, Holmes has built a language of references based on the varied displays of reverence and memorial. His obsession, however, is not so much with morbidity – though it surely does not shy away from dealing with the inevitable – but with finding his own truly American language of abstraction. The simplicity of a stone placed on a grave marker, the weathered grid of a concrete mausoleum, or a gaudily ornamented floral wreath serve as entry points to the formal elements in Holmes’s work.

“Piss Yellow / Bars and Stars” is on view through November 10th, 2013.

For more information on “Piss Yellow / Bars and Stars” visit Bureau, New York.