Tessa Holmes was born in Kent, grew up on Romney Marsh and moved to London in 1975.
Between 1993 and 1996 she attended Sir John Cass School of Art (now London Metropolitan University) receiving a first class honours degree in Fine and Applied Art.

In 1996 she studied at the Slade School of Fine Art and won a U.C.L travel scholarship to research 'desert spaces' in America. She completed her MFA in Printmaking and graduated in 1998.

Tessa has taught at the London College of Communication for over ten years. In 2003 she was awarded a university research grant and undertook a four week residency at the Scuola Internazionale di Grafica, Venezia, Italy. The work produced here was the subject of an article written for Printmaking Today, “handmade versus high tech" (winter 2004). Currently she is lead tutor for printmaking in the Faculty of Design at LCC. Her studio, Elephant Press, is based in Forest Hill, south east London - part of the Havelock Walk artists collective.

Her work is in a number of public collections including: The Government Art Collection, Ernst and Young, Bank of England and Manchester Metropolitan University. She has exhibited in numerous groups shows.