Ash Holmes Paints Her Great-Grandmother's Wartime Camouflage

Location: HAKE House of Art, Dee Why, Sydney

Date: October 9–24, 2026

Project: Vessels, Ash Holmes' fourth solo exhibition with HAKE House of Art

Why it Matters: Holmes repaints a camouflage pattern her great-grandmother designed during World War II

Vessels asks a simple question: What holds us? For Holmes, a vessel can be a body, a home, a relationship, a family history, or a story passed from one generation to the next.

Ash Holmes comes from a line of women artists, and one thread from that history runs straight through her work. Her great-grandmother designed camouflage swatches during World War II. Holmes repaints that pattern now, turning a design made to hide things into one about being seen.

For part of the show, she paints on upcycled sailcloth, left over from her years of sailing.

It's been a big year. Holmes debuted internationally with Christoffersen Egelund in Copenhagen, then showed with Circle Contemporary at London Art Fair. She brings all of that back home to Sydney, paired with functional sculpture by Nathan Martin of Saturday Yard Work, which asks the same thing of everyday objects: what do they hold up?

Vessels opens October 9, 6 to 8pm.

On view through October 24.

More info: hake.house

Photo credit: digital image by Nicholas Caldwell; film image by Max Dampney