JULIA HOLDERNESS

The Room at Ashenby

Sanderson are pleased to present the exhibition The Room at Ashenby, featuring a new body of work by Julia Holderness.

In her latest exhibition at Sanderson, Holderness presents a collection of new ceramics alongside selected watercolours from her studio archive — a space hovering between memory and invention. The scene feels familiar yet faintly out of time, like a quiet corner from Monk’s House or Charleston; filled with vessels, books, painted furniture, and soft afternoon light. Decoration of the vases and hand-painted tiles becomes both reverie and research — a way of thinking through pattern, colour, and collage. In their company, The Room at Ashenby becomes a site for imagination and memory: to settle, rearrange itself, and set out again.

Developed in conversation with her Villa Margaux and Botanical Pursuits exhibitions, these pieces continue Holderness's exploration of the social lives of artists, their networks, and travels. With an eye on art history, gardening, and decorative traditions, Holderness’s mark-making and brushstrokes interact in an intuitive, rhythmic way; hinting at landscapes, plant forms, interiors, and textiles. Inviting viewers into a world of whimsy and imagined life, the artist draws us into fleeting sensations rather than literal representations.

Holderness (b.1980 Aotearoa, New Zealand) 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. 

In 2024 Holderness was included in the exhibition Modern Women: Flight of Time at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki. Curated by Julia Waite this landmark exhibition highlighted the leading role women artists have played in shaping the development of modern art in Aotearoa New Zealand. This year she was the winner of the Zonta Ashburton Women’s Art Awards (ZAWAA) 2025 with her artwork 'Villa Margaux: A Studio Archive'.  Holderness has also recently had two photographic works 'Florence Weir in a Garden, Ōtautahi Christchurch' , 2024 and 'Florence Weir in a Room, Ōtautahi Christchurch' , 2024, placed into the permanent collection at Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū.