The Most Secret Part of Yourself

Senior Art Exhibition, April 2018

Dwelling

Houses are not inherently emotionally charged spaces. My work examines the shift from house to home that occurs through the act of dwelling. Objects, mementos, traditions, acts of care and of tending charge our space emotionally. Through these investments, we construct our home, causing our environment to shift in both a physical sense and in our psychological relationship to it. Through inhabitation, the room becomes a reflection of the individual who resides within it—each room becomes a portrait of its occupant.

As my family began to dissolve, my family’s house became a means to examine the relationships between myself and my family members without representing them directly. These three internal spaces act as portraits of specific family members. The division of the home into individual paintings reference the isolation and division of those who inhabit these spaces.

In color and size, the frames of the windows reference the real window frames of my family’s house. This creates the static, stage-like quality of the physical structure of a house in the gallery. The painted internal space reflects my psychological relationship to these spaces through their achromatic coloration and unusual perspective of the rooms. Removing the figures from these spaces allows the viewer to project their own experiences and associations upon these rooms.