Combining research, performance, video, digital manipulation, drawing, and installation, Desiree Holman’s multifaceted practice dissects the discourses that structure our shared experience of the social world: from ideas of gender and sexuality to notions of race and motherhood among many others. Originally trained as a sculptor, the Oakland-based artist places emphasis on objects due to their potential as repositories of meaning. With the help of performers, she then puts these objects to use as costumes or props in performances that the artist describes as “identity play-focused work.” Although Holman generally presents the performances as multi-channel videos, her oeuvre also incorporates traditional gallery works such as drawings and paintings, which a related to the videos on display. The source material informing her work is often based in her real-world research, pulling apart and interrogating social constructs she finds in popular culture and subcultures, in order to excavate social myths and illustrate the complexity of human psyche.