Claudette Holmes Explained

Claudette May Holmes (born 1962) is a British photographer. Her work, which uses elements of montage and hand-colouring, has challenged stereotypical representations of Black British people.^[1]

Life

Claudette Holmes was born in 1962 in Birmingham, England. In the early 1980s she worked in community arts in Birmingham.^[1] In 1982, she exhibited in Closing the Gap at the University of Aston and Herbert Art Gallery, Coventry.^[2]

In 1990, Holmes was among several female black and Asian photographers featured in the documentary Sistren in Photography.^[3] The 1993 exhibition From Negative Stereotype to Positive Image included her work alongside that of three other Birmingham photographers: Sir Benjamin Stone (1838–1914), Ernest Dyche (1887–1973) and Vanley Burke (born 1951).^[4] In 1996, she won the Chrissie Bailey Photography and Education Award.^[1]

Exhibitions

• Womanness, Wolverhampton Art Gallery, 1990. With Roshini Kempadoo.
• Sharp Voices, Still Lives, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, 1990.
• In Sight in View: Mozaix Black Visual Arts Poster Campaign. Various sites, 1990. With Nigel Madhoo, Roshini Kempadoo, Alvin Kelly, Maxine Walker and Said Adrus.^[5]
• Manipulated Images, Picture House, Leicester, 1992.
• Black British Photographers, Houston FotoFestival, Texas, 1992.
• The Critical Decade, Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, 1993.
• From Negative Stereotype to Positive Image, Birmingham Central Library, 1993. With Sir Benjamin Stone, Ernest Dyche

Notes and References

1. Book: Peter . James . Alison Donnell . Alison Donnell . Companion to Contemporary Black British Culture . https://books.google.com/books?id=VfdpdZ9DwH0C&pg=PA199 . 2002 . Routledge . 978-1-134-70025-7 . 199 . Holmes, Claudette May .
2. Web site: Claudette Holmes, Photographer . Birmingham Images . 10 February 2022 .
3. Web site: Sistren in Photography . 10 February 2022 .
4. Book: James, Peter . Alison Donnell. Alison Donnell. Companion to Contemporary Black British Culture. 2002. Routledge. 978-1-134-70025-7. 119–120. From Negative Stereotype to Positive Image.
5. Book: Melanie. Keen . Elizabeth Ward . Recordings: a select bibliography of contemporary African, Afro-Caribbean and Asian British Art . 1996 . 31 .