Receiving the Springboard Award for Visual Arts gifted by Dr Fiona Pardington & Starkwhite – Mentored by 2005 Laureate Ronnie van Hout

Erika Holm is an artist based in Tāmaki Makaurau. Her work explores desire, ornamentation, and objects as vessels of longing. She particularly incorporates wood, metal, and bodily matter into her artworks.

After graduating with a Bachelor of Design (Spatial), she began working at Apartmento Contemporary Furniture, where she developed a knowledge of furniture-making and metal fabrication. Although she began exhibiting with a practice centred on drawing, the skills she learned during her time at Apartmento enabled her to move into sculpture and installation. Holm now works as a workshop technician at Auckland University of Technology. Her work has been shown in group exhibitions at Artspace Aotearoa, play_station space, Grace Aotearoa, and Michael Lett, and in the solo exhibition Eunuch at Ivan Anthony (2025).

Panel statement: “Working predominantly in sculpture, Erika’s work explores references to the body, whether directly utilising figuration or working with forms with a strong bodily resonance. She takes a deep dive into historical sculptural legacies (including the ecclesiastical and classical) which, combined with an exquisitely skilled manipulation of materials, result in uncanny, vulnerable and moving works. This Springboard award recognises extraordinary works to date, including Apology (2025) featured in Echo: Erika Holm, Ngaroma Riley, Tarika Sabherwal as the Chartwell Trust New Commissions exhibition at Artspace Aotearoa, and presentations at Ivan Anthony, Grace (with Thom Hinton), and Michael Lett.”