the acorn at the end of the banister, paint fades at the grip of trusting fists.
anaglypta climbing each wall, burnished by the touch of curious fingertips, the brush of a hasty elbow.
oval indents within rugs lining halls, fibres smeared by lingering steps.
diamonds of setting light reflected on artex ceilings, doilies atop dusty dressers, net curtains an absolute boundary.
homes exist to envelop us, incubator-like, with a cultivation of life and self. they house us, we bloom within them. they hold our presence firm.
in attempts to preserve the house of my grandparents, a plethora of materials have been employed to cast and sculpt, to cover and mask. through translations of soft materials to hard, a subversion of the domestic is enabled. by seeing a defamiliarised state of a doily, for example, with patterns punched in aluminium sheets, we question the role of them, and can consider them anew.
these materials define us and the space; each material making up the interior is just as much intrinsic to the existence of the house as the foundations on which it was built. fundamentally, the walls, floors, ceilings, windows, and doilies, have witnessed the cultivation of lives, the blooming and fading of relationships. they have been privy to growths of love.
through the medium of a clay cast of wallpaper, and a wax and steel front window, the idea of the external and the internal is bridged, the unseen of a house revealed as one nears the piece. traces of home contained within a steel microcosm.
traces of the home, traces of the self