EVERY DAY, LIFE
2025
This series of works involves two disciplines: painting (watercolour and pastels on paper), and sculpture (cotton fabrication). The paintings began as a simple routine, with the aim to complete one work daily. There are thirty sketches of an abstract shape in space. The subject matter is inconsequential - a crumpled sheet of paper viewed from different angles. With a limited colour palette and uniform dimensions, the main focus is form, colour and light. Displayed together the images appear to float with a soft fluidity. These paintings were intended as a form of discipline, however every day, life seems to get in the way. Normal distractions, and interruptions of the domestic world challenge routine and regulation, forcing a recalibration and a nuanced approach to the idea of control.
The ‘vessel’ are constructed from vintage cotton. Tablecloths and doilies and antimacassars are cut, torn, glued and moulded over heritage vases, bowls and jugs. Sourced from my familial home, these fabrics were sewn by maternal relatives, and were traditionally used to protect polished surfaces. Proudly displayed, they featured in abundance, where ‘Look, but don’t touch’ was a common refrain. It was with mixed feelings, therefore, when I took to them with the scissors - both trepidation and glee. Signalling domestic themes and gender-based traditions, the repetitious shapes of the vessels, mirror the iterative nature of household tasks. Originally designed to hold water for washing or floral arrangements, the vessels are rendered unusable, being made of unsuitable materials. While the shapes are repetitious, interruptions and imperfections occur in the assemblage and mismatched patterning. These mirror diversions which are themselves also part of daily life, and have been incorporated and embraced.
‘…artists have appropriated the routines of daily life to make poignant statements on the capacity of humans to endure.’… ‘Repetition increases your sensitivity to the small variations. It is the underlying beat that you can play against, just as you do in music. Deviation requires regularity to have something to deviate from. The system has to be there to be broken. Variation can only arise when there is a repetition to vary.’
— Every Day Practices : Artists Confront Adversity. Ocula Magazine, By Anna Dickie & Elaine YJ Zheng, Singapore 23 October 2024.
‘All of existence is based on a pulse of repetitions; the beating of the heart, the rhythm of the day, the recurrent need of the body for food and for sleep. Everyday life is repetition. In our modern society we have a strained relationship with repetitions. We pay lip service to the opposite: the innovation, the transformation, the experiential kick. But repetition is a condition of life to which we as human beings are forced to relate.’ — The Magic of Repetition. An Essay by Helle Hove. Ceramics: Art and Perception, No 80. 2010
Photographs: Michelle Bowden
