DOMICILE TENDENCIES

There is nothing more intimate nor more universal than the subject of “home.” The inclination to create a personal habitat goes beyond mere necessity. One’s home is a signature of one’s individual identity, or it may signify the aspirations and character of those who established the household in which one resides. Neighborhoods take on personalities that speak of the visions of urban planners and/or developers who built them as well the realities of the residents who live there. For many, the idea of home conjures memories of the past.

Domicile Tendencies presents work by seven artists whose work mines the domestic.  Claudia Tennyson makes the physical space of the gallery homier with a site-specific architectural intervention utilizing sewn fabric. Taryn McCabe’s full-scale felt-covered furniture installation becomes a soft sculpture memorial to the quotidian. Stephen Whisler’s wood hybrid sculptures of a house/wagon and birdhouse/coffin elicit both humor and pathos, calling to mind homes for transient humans and homes for dying bird species. Tyson Washburn’s deadpan photographs of suburban architecture are elegant formal compositions while they are, perhaps surprisingly, endearing, quirky and unsettling. 

Allison Watkins creates embroidered drawings on fabric to document her closet of clothes. In doing so, she captures chapters of her life defined by her particular residence at the time as well as the set of garments owned by her and those with whom she has shared her living space. Alexa Kay Alexander’s projected snapshot of a house has a vaporous quality akin to memory. This is juxtaposed with a hyper-real cutout in the adjacent wall revealing its inner construction. Holly Williams’ haunting soft focus oil paintings reference home movies and family photographs. Her paintings allude to but are unable to reveal the significance of anonymous family mementos, leaving them evocatively open for interpretation.

                                               ~ Chandra Cerrito, Curator