An autumn pond

Semi abstract, expressive and gestural painting. Oil on linen. 51x75cm. Esther Hipponax wrote in her recent article, Expression in Depth : "Lilia Orlova-Holmes rejects the consciousness of expression, the self-aware beautifying of a base phenomenon of nature. There can be no thought of prettiness, of creating an object tuned towards sensibility. There can only be expression’s own desperate grasp outwards. Expression itself has no care for what it expresses or who it expresses to. It is only the fact of self-transcendence: the tendency of being to go beyond itself. It becomes deeper, thicker, a growing mass of tendrils and vines. Lilia Orlova-Holmes’ waterlilies reject anything other than the fact of expression as it is embodied in nature: flaring up from dark roots whose origins are obscure. The tone is colossal, a swarm of purple intensities and evergreen surfaces. There can be no implication of a movement beyond. Focus cannot divert itself to the horizon. Instead, it is drawn ever deeper into life’s indiscernible act."