SUNNY DAYS 2020

Jammie Holmes made this painting, Sunny Days, with loose brushstrokes and a dark palette punctuated by bright yellows and blues. I can imagine the artist building up this scene bit by bit, improvising the composition as he went along. I sympathize with Holmes, trying to create something new on the canvas. Maybe he was thinking about home, memory, and how we construct our identities. The paint is applied in layers, with thick strokes that give the surface a tactile quality, and the figures seem to emerge from the darkness, a black ground that pushes them forward. I love the way he paints the light, using these pale yellows and whites that suggest both warmth and fragility. Look at that sun, rendered with such immediacy. Like other figurative painters, Holmes uses the human form to explore themes of identity, representation, and social justice. And in doing so, he reminds us that art is always a conversation, artists responding to one another across time and space. It’s about uncertainty, opening up multiple readings rather than closing them down.