Home Use Only
Exhibition, 2021.
March 12 — April 4 2021, Outré Gallery
︎ View available works ︎︎︎ HERE
The works in Home Use Only are portraits of the domestic objects that I used most days throughout the extended COVID-19 lockdowns of 2020. It felt as though these objects gained a new kind of power or significance with the intimate familiarity and anchoring that came from using them each day. The routine, ritual and reliability that they came to possess was grounding amidst the unpredictability of the weeks that warped onwards.
'Home Use Only' is a phrase that I recall from childhood, a textual warning that would flash up on VHS tapes indicating the film/programme was not licensed to be shown in public, and should only be watched in the privacy of one's home. I kept thinking about this phrase as I was drawing these portraits. I found it humorous and somewhat fitting - the routines and rituals that I now associate with these objects could only exist within my home space.
Further reading: Interview with Viet-my Bui of Outré Gallery
'Home Use Only' is a phrase that I recall from childhood, a textual warning that would flash up on VHS tapes indicating the film/programme was not licensed to be shown in public, and should only be watched in the privacy of one's home. I kept thinking about this phrase as I was drawing these portraits. I found it humorous and somewhat fitting - the routines and rituals that I now associate with these objects could only exist within my home space.
Further reading: Interview with Viet-my Bui of Outré Gallery
L: Bebe Bialetti, oil pastel on paper, 57 x 73cm
R: Le Dippy Cup, oil pastel on paper, 52 x 42cm
R: Rinsed, oil pastel on paper, 57 x 73 cm
L: What Do You Feel Like for Dinner?, oil pastel on paper, 52 x 42.5cm
R: Time Is a Flat Circle, oil pastel on paper, 53 x 53 cm
L: Sun Inside, oil pastel on paper, 57 x 73 cm
R: Going Steady, oil pastel on paper, 33.5 x 47 cm