Tim Holmes

is the first American artist ever invited to exhibit solo at the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, from 1993 to 1994, where three of his sculptures remain on permanent exhibit. His work has gained notice also among some of the world's peacemakers. Nobel prize winners Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Jimmy Carter are among Holmes' best-known collectors along with many other international figures such as Vaclav Havel, Coretta Scott King and Mrs. Anwar Sadat. Holmes has created art for many humanitarian projects such as the Physicians for Social Responsibility, PeaceLinks and the South African bid for the 2004 Olympics. Recently he created the United Nations Peace Prize for Women, awarded to heroines working to bridge conflicts the world over.

Following the Tiananmen Sq. massacre in China in 1989 Holmes was commissioned by the China Information Center to create a sculpture to commemorate that event and raise money to get the true account past Chinese official censors through to the citizens in what has become known as “the first FAX revolution in history”.

Holmes exhibits in American museums and galleries across the country but often prefers exhibiting his work in venues outside the standard art world. He has shown work in prominent cathedrals such as the National Cathedral and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.

He also speaks and teaches broadly on art, spirituality and transformation in addresses from the International Arts Movement in New York to Marianne Williamson’s Unity Church in Detroit, to the Jeannette Rankin Peace center in Montana.

Though Holmes is most well known for sculpture, he has worked in a variety of media from museum installation to recent experiments in new media. Holmes's work primarily focuses on the human form, on the gesture as expression of greater human themes: the struggle for freedom, horror at inner and outer evils, the ferocity of hopelessness, the tenderness of love. Each sculpture tells a story in muscle and metaphor, in gesture and meaning at once earthly and deeply spiritual. His more recent works address his fascination with beauty as a force in life-both mysterious and terrible, where, in the words of Dostoevsky, "God and the Devil are fighting...and the battlefield is the heart of man."

Tim Holmes is also a member of the political satire and comedy group the Montana Logging and Ballet Co., which has performed around the US since 1976. He serves as a member of the Montana Arts Council.

2005