This work is part of Botanical Pursuits, a series exploring the role of gardens and cultivated landscapes in the creative lives of women. Holderness’s practice investigates women’s aesthetic histories and modernism, drawing on both real and imagined gardens as sites of inspiration and invention and the private garden as a site of creativity and autonomy for the modern women. 

For this work, Holderness looks to UK artist Vanessa Bell and her garden studio at Charleston. She has long admired Bell’s ability to weave motherhood, friendships and artistic ambition together, transforming the experiences of domestic life into innovative modern art. Exhibiting alongside her longtime art historical conduit, Florence Weir, Holderness draws inspiration from Bell and from UK plantswoman Kitty Lloyd Jones, a pioneering female garden designer. Together, these figures reflect Holderness’s enduring interest in gardens as places of creativity, experimentation, and cultural exchange.

Julia Holderness lives and works in Ōtautahi Christchurch. She completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Canterbury in 2002 and an Honours in Visual Arts at AUT University, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland in 2015. In 2022 Holderness completed a Visual Arts PhD in practice-led research at AUT University. Her thesis titled “Ever Present Archiving: methodologies for art histories through invention, fabrication and social practice” explores archives and their construction of art-historical narratives.