Museum The Artist

The Artist is an ongoing portrait series by Julia Holden that makes visible the often-invisible labour of artistic practice.

Through Performance Painting—a distinctive fusion of sculpture, performance, and painting—Julia collaborated with artists from across creative disciplines, where the artist becomes the 'living canvas' for the portrait, challenging traditional boundaries between disciplines and highlighting the physical and emotionally embodied nature of creative work itself. Each portrait includes an element to indicate the artist's particular focus and practice.

Building on work initiated in Ōtepoti/Dunedin in 2024, this presentation features 20 Performance Painting portraits that expand conversations around engagement, process, and presence. By bringing together practitioners from diverse creative sectors—visual artists, performers, musicians, writers, and makers of many stripes —The Artist celebrates the interconnected nature of creative work while giving form to the usually unseen efforts, relationships, and exchanges that underpin all artistic production.