Aaron Holmes

Aaron Holmes is an animator, filmmaker and educator originally from Lincoln, Nebraska. In his filmmaking practice he is focused on questions related to the climate crisis, political polarization and raising children in an unstable world. Holmes expresses these concerns metaphorically through stop motion and other analog animation techniques in short films that function as visual poems. His animated shorts have screened at leading film festivals including Animac (Lleida, Spain), Cineautopsia (Bogotá, Colombia), and the San Francisco Dance Film Festival. Prior to joining Biola’s art department, Holmes was an independent motion designer and also worked on TV series at the stop motion studios Stoopid Buddy and Open the Portal. In 2022 he was the lead animator on Muro, a short film supported by Film Independent and LAIKA. Holmes has recently taught animation courses at Cal State Long Beach and CalArts, as well as animation workshops for the Calibraska Arts Initiative and the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. Holmes holds a bachelor’s degree from Doane College, a Master of Arts from UMass Amherst, and an MFA in Animation from CalArts. He lives with his wife and their two boys in Whittier, California.