Chloë HoltRCA FRSA

“The earth after the shower was fresh; a river of life flowed.” - 'Virginia Woolf - Mrs Dalloway'

This painting is inspired by the discovery of an ancient, overgrown pool in a field near my home—its surface scattered with lily pads and iris fronds. Drawing on Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway, I explore the idea of “water and the sky,” a space where consciousness drifts toward oblivion. As Woolf writes, “In the depths, light trembled still.” It is a place where hallucination dissolves the boundary between self and world.

The paintings are both ethereal and soft, yet marked by distressed, scratched textures—suggesting mental friction, fragmentation, and a surrender to either the depth of the waters or the reflections on their surface. Reeds and lily pads transform into ghostly, dripping calligraphic lines—memories trying to rise. We exist between layers.

Clarissa’s green dress in the novel is likened to “mermaids singing, each to each.” My work feels submerged in a similar way—our identities fluid and shifting. There is a sense of delicacy here, of transient, elusive beauty.

Oil, raw pigment, oil bar and gesso on board in 1920s Art Deco antique frame 104 cm w x 83 cm h unframed 138 cm w x 119 cm h x 8 cm d

“At Bourton they always had stiff little vases all down the table. Sally went out, picked hollyhocks, dahlias — all sorts of flowers that had never been seen together — cut their heads off, and made them swim on the top of water in bowls. The effect was extraordinary — coming in from the sunlit garden into the darkened room, the light making the petals luminous, some floating, some sinking, all with the incomparable beauty of their frail, quivering, yet daring life.” — Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway

This painting responds to Woolf’s vivid image of flower heads floating in bowls—fragile, luminous, and boldly un-arranged. I was drawn to the tension between order and wildness, tradition and quiet rebellion.

The blooms hover in a densely layered surface—part reflection, part memory. The textured paint suggests both water and distortion, evoking the fragility of the moment and the fluidity of perception. Light and shadow shift across the composition, echoing Woolf’s theme of transience and inner life. The bowl becomes a vessel not for preservation, but for transformation.

Encaustic wax, oil paint, raw pigment with gesso on board in antique frame. 51 cm w x 41 cm h unframed 69 cm w x 58.5 cm h x 6 cm d framed

“Behind the veil of the flesh was the pure soul, the narrow chamber, the candle burning.” — Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway

This painting explores the idea of the hidden self—the quiet, flickering presence of the soul beneath the surface. A space for quiet contemplation.

The “candle” is a metaphor: a subtle, enduring light within our lives. The rough, scraped surface evokes memory, time, and the tension between inner stillness and outer decay. Like an attic rarely entered, this work holds something intimate, fragile, and quietly defiant.

Oil, mixed media and gesso on board in antique frame. 51 cm w x 41 cm h unframed 69 cm w x 58.5 cm h x 6 cm d framed

“The incomparable beauty of their frail, quivering, yet daring life... The leaden circles dissolved in the air.” — Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway

'Floating Hours' continues the reflection begun in 'Beauty Had a Meaning' — a meditation on memory, impermanence, and the fleeting beauty of time suspended. The painting depicts pewter bowls of water filled with drifting, fragmented forms—petals, reflections, shadows—all caught in a moment of soft transience.

The circular vessels suggest both stillness and motion, like Woolf’s “leaden circles” of the chimes of time echoing from Big Ben ringing out over London. Some forms appear to rise toward the surface; others sink into the depths. These bowls become vessels of remembrance, where beauty and loss coexist.

There’s a quiet tension in the composition: between light and dark, surface and depth, presence and fading. The flowers are like lingering thoughts. This work, like the novel, is a space where time floats rather than passes, and where meaning is felt in its most delicate, dissolving form.

Encaustic wax, oil paint, raw pigment with gesso on board in antique frame. 76 cm w x 66 cm h unframed 96 cm w x 85.5 cm h x 7 cm d

“She had a sense of letting go; and as she did so, up rose into the air the faces of the others… they floated about her like mermaids, and sang…” — Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway

Nymphaea draws on the atmosphere of the ancient, hidden pool—overgrown with lily pads and iris fronds—where sky and water meet and dissolve. The painting is both landscape and inner state, a drifting meditation on memory, identity, and the momentary clarity that emerges from stillness.

Inspired by Woolf’s vision of mermaids, moonlight, and dissolving selves, this piece imagines the water as a veil between consciousness and oblivion. Layers of blue, earth, and shadow evoke both the depths of the pond and the vastness of the sky reflected in it. The lilies are not perfectly rendered but more felt-impressions of ethereal shapes surfacing through the delicate surface.

The work holds a tension between fluid lightness and grounded weight: soft, transparent washes contrast with dark, distressed textures that suggest the friction of thought, the fragility of memory. The surface is alive with movement, yet subdued, as if the image is slowly emerging—or vanishing.

Nymphaea is a painting of thresholds: between presence and absence, self and world, light and shadow. Like the fleeting beauty Woolf describes, it floats—delicate, uncertain, but undeniably there.

Mixed media on Arches Oil Paper 131 cm h x 71 cm w unframed 140 cm h x 80 cm w Framed in simple modern white frame floating on mount board behind glass