Jammie Holmes: BEING BLACK
Jammie Holmes is a painter from Thibodaux, Louisiana. He is a self-taught painter who is most notably known for his depictions of the lives of African American life in America. His paintings offer a simple and direct portrayal, often involving themes of childhood, racism, masculinity and religion.
Jammie Holmes was born close to the Mississippi River, in an area where the shadow of America’s racist past still lingers today. Growing up, Holmes had firsthand experience of the social and economic consequences that slavery and racism still brings to this day. Since the Thibodaux Massacre of 1887, Holmes’ hometown has seen intense fluctuations in labor union conflicts
It seems, this direct confrontation with the suffering of his people and ancestors defined Holmes’ creative personality most distinctly. Jammie Holmes did not grow up as an avid or experienced painter. In fact it was just about 5 years ago that he started to paint and taught himself the skill overtime.
Before then he was working in Dallas at a machine shop. He started to paint as a means to calm his anxiety and high blood pressure. As he began to hone his skills and find an artistic voice, the racial justice protests in America began to increase and he became an active participant.
He began to paint what he knew best. His portraiture and tableaux styles depict still moments of everyday struggle. He depicts childhood and uses his paintings to reflect on masculinity. His painting ‘Second Childhood’ from a 2020 exhibit, depicts an adult black man riding a child’s bicycle while gazing off the frame dispassionately. Another painting from the same year, named ‘American Neighborhood’, portrays a young black boy sitting by a fallen toy, consumed by a black background.
Jammie Holmes is probably best known for his series of works that served as a means for public demonstration in protest to the killing of George Floyd in 2020. This aerial demonstration involved airplanes with large banners flying across 5 major American cities. Each banner would read something from the last words of George Floyd, recorded as a police man suffocated him to death on video.
The artistic demonstration was titled ‘They’re Going to Kill Me’ and clearly presents us with the motivation and inspiration behind Jammie Holmes’ artistic turn. For him, this was a way of giving George Floyd the moment of silence he deserved amidst all the media panic. The medium of the airplane banner is something usually used for consumerist and elitist ideals, whereas using it for the purposes of public demonstration acts as a subversion of this.
Growing up in a woman centered household, Jammie Holmes also expresses his feelings towards masculinity. He uses his painting to portray men crying and showing their emotions to reflect on society’s harmful ideals of masculinity. In an interview with Dallas Contemporary, Jammie Holmes said that he puts all of his energy and emotions into a painting. He talked about how draining the process can be but how it is worth it because in the end he wants his viewers to really feel something.
Jammie Holmes is a talented and socially conscious young artist whose innovative and emotionally sincere work has put him on the map in recent years. Keep an eye out for what this artist has in store next.
