EXHIBITIONS: 2020: - 2020 Ferens Open Exhibition. Ferens Art Gallery. 2021: - Darby Rimmer MND Foundation Charity Auction. 2022: - The 20-21 Open Exhibition 2022. 20-21 Visual Arts Centre. - JUST US 22. Scunthorpe, John Leggott College. 2023: - BAMS Student Medal Competition, Central Saint Martins School of Art. - Uncertain Society, Watsonia Pavillion Cross Flatts Park, Leeds. - Child Friendly Leeds Live, Millenium Square, Leeds. 2024: - Fledgling. Leeds Art University. - BAMS Student Medal Competition. Birmingham School of Jewellery. - Printed Bound Market. Sunnybank Mills. - Sammich.co. Leeds. - 49 Good Artists, East Street Arts. - Look If You Want, Peckham Place. - GALLERY INFORMAL 3, Meta Space Gallery - Issue 51 - Science and Art - Collaboration and Influence, Haus a Rest - WAYZGOOSE, Assembly House. Leeds. 2025: - Omnipotence of Dream, Salford Museum & Art Gallery, Salford. - Rooted in Yorkshire, Aire St Workshops, Leeds. - SCENE, Leeds Art University. Leeds. - Bloom, Leeds Art Union. Leeds. - The 137 Collective, Leeds Art University. Leeds. - Four Quarters, Leeds Art University. Leeds. - NEST Magazine, publication. Leeds. - Two Hysterical Women, North Art Gallery. Leeds. - BAMS Student Medal Competition, Hereford College of Art. - The Gap Between the Self and the Other, publication, Aldobranti. UPCOMING: - As We See It, Leeds Art University. Leeds. (16th-21st June) - The Essence of the Primal, Leeds Art University. Leeds. (16th-11th August)
ABOUT
Holly Louise Tomlinson is a British born (b. 2003) Fine Art painter currently living in Leeds, UK. Her artistic journey engages in elements of Surrealism, satirical ecologies, evolutionary and social history, and the marvellous fantastical.
Tomlinson’s oil paintings are a bold phantasmagoria of portals into a psycho-surreal landscape occupied with anthropomorphic figures of almost human, almost animal chimeras. The titillating and hybridic nature of her work satirises anthropocentric ideologies that separate man from animal. Tomlinson creates with the intent of embracing the surreal nature of our existence by perceiving it through the lens of evolutionary history, tracing our complicated society back to its aquatic roots found within tales of the ancestral Tiktaalik. She blurs the boundaries set by our absurd social hierarchies we impose, calling to remind one another that humans are sophisticated fish that learnt to walk.
Her paintings are anachronistic, dancing between worlds and belonging to no specific time as the scenes feature and play with modern humour and artefacts of human creation found throughout history. Medieval tournament pavilions sprout like plants from verdant rolling hills, salmon-headed soldiers armed in 16th century breastplates and gauntlets go to war for their women and country, and rabbit-headed hunters arm themselves with flintlock firearms whilst standing fashionably, trouserless, in their heart-patterned boxers. At the crux of the oddity is an investigation into over-sophisticated societies and the propaganda that influences and pervades a humanity that is too logical, summarised as the cyclical nature of self-important conflicts. Tomlinson’s work is enriched in cynicism, but does not catastrophize. These surreal portals tease and play with other worlds, calling to action to revolutionise the entrapments of sophisticated society and to embrace our primal strangeness.
Tomlinson's work, in summary, is a curious glance into the oddity of the human condition, human and animal relationships, and existence.