At Home is a project that visualizes the effects of spending too much time in the domestic space and considers the conflicting notions of home as a source of comfort, but also desolation and unease. In essence, the work is a form of self-portraiture, my body’s presence expressed through the messes it makes and the things it leaves behind. The installation seeks to express the insecurities that imbed themselves in the objects around me; feelings of lethargy, sadness, and dullness.

Physical and mental states are fused in constructions and images. Feelings of laziness are manifested in objects on the floor, hair accumulated in a corner, and an oddly scaled garbage bag hanging from a doorknob—all representing chores that could be completed but are not. The mundaneness of a stain on a carpet or the appearance of used items emphasize a certain despair that thrives in unexamined corners of the space, of the mind. While familiar scenes can suggest comfort, they also exude melancholy and anxiety and are provoked in the installation through scale, flatness, and the placement of objects and textures in relation to one another.

The installation transports private aspects of the home into the public realm. Commonplace items are made jarring and peculiar when transformed by scale and placed oddly within the gallery space. Pleasing colours and polished presentation seduce the viewer, while the crude subject matter provokes discomfort. The suggestion of a cycle is revealed through circular forms: a repetitive and constant domestic routine that ultimately fosters feelings of agitation and sorrow.