Artwork

Cas works on private and public commissions and is represented in international collections (including the Museum of Art and Design in New York, Arts Council England, The Diana Springall Collection, The Embroiderer’s Guild UK and the Garden Museum London.) Examples of her projects and exhibitions are detailed below. To arrange a visit to her studio or for more general enquiries about her work/prices please use the contact form.

Places:The Shipping Forecast

This exhibition is an exploration of the concept of ‘place’ and our understanding of the importance of heritage; how our inherited traditions, monuments, objects, and culture can impact upon our identities and the space we call ‘home’.

I am interested in the commonalities we have as people, the need for a place of our own, family and food. With migration, changes in our working lives and increasing opportunities to travel, our certainty about who we are and where we fit in is unsure.

This new work was shown at the beautiful Sint-Anna-ten-Drieën church in Antwerp (summer 2022) through the organisation vzw ANNA3. A selection of the pieces called The Shipping Forecast was installed in the amazing creative space of a converted lightvessel LV21, in Gravesend in the UK, before touring to R Space in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, Sevenoaks Kaleidoscope Gallery, Craft Town Scotland and Queen Street Gallery, Neath.

You can hear me speak about the project in these beautiful films shot by Gary Weston on LV21 and in my studio, supported by Fibre Arts Takes Two.

LV21 is less than 20 miles down the road from me so I couldn’t not go to see it! How lucky am I to be living where I do. I was one of the first visitors up the gangway this afternoon and chose to go today because they had a cafe survey about (diminishing) open spaces on the Hoo peninsula which is where I live as well as Cas’s exhibition. The bigger pieces are much lighter in weight than I expected them to be, especially as they are designed to be looked at from both sides, but hold some very poignant words. I was very much drawn to the display of vessels formed around the discarded beakers used by some of the migrants rescued from the English Channel and the shores of Kent. (Brenda Paternoster visitor comment on Fibre Art Takes Two, Making Connections:Mark, Layer and Stitch with Cas Holmes)

What We Value, What We Miss related community work, and Trees installation in the church ‘dancing’ with Bach here.

Derek’s Garden

As slowing down became necessary in her life, Cas Holmes was able to pause, reflect and notice the simple things – the often overlooked – which provided a rich resource for her latest textile work.

As she gardened by day, she stitched her observations in the evening. Images of a robin perched on a fork, carrots and peas from seed packets and daisies planted in a watering can. She hand stitched words, like a diary: thoughts about spring bulbs and an October bonfire, standing on a slug in bare feet, the crow who stole her toast, and the fox she saw in the veggie patch. It was cathartic.

Textile Artist, A Continual Challenge of Ideas

Storytellers, The Beaney House of Art and Knowledge, December 2023 – February 2024

“Storytellers” curated by Kent Creative in partnership with the Lilford Gallery showcases the connection between art and storytelling, emphasising how artworks convey narratives, emotions and perspectives. Interview by Kent Creative about my work can be found here on Kent Creative Show . See my interview with Rob Smith about my work “Memory“, featured in the exhibition,

Gypsy Maker

As an artist of Romani heritage it is my privilege to be an exhibitor and educator with the ground-breaking Romani Cultural and Arts Company and Arts Council Wales.

Image below Gypsy Maker project at Ty Pawb in Wrexham (2024) Photo by Harry Meadley.

Wayside Weeds at Whoop Festival, Slough Fort, Hoo, Kent. (photo courtesy of Sheilagh Dyson)

Cas Holmes invites you to take a closer look at the often overlooked edges of our landscape — the places in between, where wildflowers grow and nature quietly thrives
Working with recycled textiles and found materials, Cas creates delicate, layered artworks inspired by the verges on the edges of our roads, woods and wild paths These ‘weeds’ — so often dismissed — are in fact vital habitats and beautiful reminders of resilience. -Paivi Seppali

Opening Gypsy Maker 4
Panni Kekkavva Gypsy Maker 4
Panni Kekkavva Gypsy Maker 4
Panni Kekkavva Rose
Panni Kekkavva Wagtail
Panni Kekkavva Detail
Panni Kekkavva Bamboo
Hopkins Gypsy Maker 4 I and Dan Turner Pegs
Hopkins
Great Aunt Margaret’s Hopes
Great Aunt Margaret’s Hopes
Edgelands Trees
Shadows
Shadows Grandmother
Gypsy Maker 4 WIP
Gypsy Maker 4 WIP
Gypsy Maker 4 WIP

Places, Spaces, Traces: Gypsy Maker 4. Valuable mentoring and commission allowed me to reflect on my identity and mixed heritage which led to new works for exhibition which questions the relationship we have with the land and each other. With migration and travel alongside changes in our working lives, the certainties about who we are and our place in the world is in flux. 2020-2022

Textile Landscape:Painting with Cloth

‘Painting With Cloth’ by Cas Holmes explores explores the connection between landscape, people and place. Collecting found materials as she goes, Cas creates marks with cloth, paint and stitch with a disregard of the divisions of medium usage and application that often define the world of painting and textiles. The exhibition started its tour at the Knitting and Stitching Show 2018 . (Toured Rochester Art Gallery 2019, The National Needlework Archive, Old Chapel Arts Centre, Newbury 2021 and Farfield Mill in Sedbergh, Cumbria, 2022. This Textileartist video on Facebook also gives and insight into my approach to stitch

Common Place

Commonplace’ looks at the nature of place and our relationship to a constantly changing landscape in an increasingly urbanised world giving the impression of capturing a moment or ‘thing’ before it is gone. These ‘common places’ are not town or countryside, but rather ‘edgelands’, the sides of roads, railway sidings, areas on the edges of the industrial landscape which have a strange beauty all of their own

40 Yards

40 Yards shares the observations of familiar things, the stuff of the everyday, alongside the seasonal changes within the locality of the artists home. The piece began with a scrap of fabric with the words 40 yards printed on it. The basis for each piece is created from materials collected whilst travelling. Bringing the world of home and travel together.

An interesting insight to her working process can be seen in Conception to Creation a series of articles on Textileartist.