Karen & Veronica were joined by Peter Cordeaux,
Jo Eden, Mike Harrison, Mark Priestly and Camilla Swire to the Rossetti Meeting
Room at Beach Creative to share and discuss more ideas around our challenging brief of exploring
the paradoxes of “house/home”.
Peter Cordeaux is interested in making a visual
assemblage, thinking about objects that people accumulate excessively in their
houses as a result of over consumerism, dumping usable stuff after just a few
years, yet paying for storage to keep possessions that we don’t need but still
want. His philosophy was for a ‘second life’ for these objects, but
acknowledged that it is impossible to keep (or amass) everything. He admitted that
trawling eBay, imagining what he could buy, but resisting, was an antidote.
Jo Eden’s creative work is inspired by the
natural landscape and an interest in the social fabric of community and how
these knit together. Also a writer, she has worked with the “house” theme
previously and is formulating a book for the exhibition. Her deep involvement
with Rose Street Cottage of Curiosities in Sheerness, Isle of Sheppey (a
Victorian docker’s cottage preserved as an arts centre/museum) informs her practice.
Mike Harrison is investigating structural
form, thinking simultaneously about the abstract, formal and the 4th
dimension. Continuing working with a found object of a pet house (not a toy
house), he was considering viewing angles, the challenges of a free standing construction
and how to light the object meaningfully. He was also developing ideas on the
paradox of house as haven but also threatening, collecting innocent household tools,
which could have a surreal, sinister meaning.
Mark Priestly brought a “found object”
connected with his concept of reproducing an atmospheric and disturbing version
of the spooky landing and unlit attic bedroom of his childhood home: a large piece
of multilayered, bright and muted wallpapers, seemingly ripped from an old house
and giving a “feel of uncomfortableness.” He intends to experiment with bicycle
lamp light to throw claw like shadows from
the torn edges.
Karen Simpson is continuing to think about
and work on her medicine cabinet focusing on and illustrating the risks
contained in historical household remedies. She is currently sourcing poison
bottles and other artefacts from Victorian rubbish dumps along the local
coastline for this assemblage.
Camilla Swire from Canterbury often
explores in fairy tales and myths in her work and is considering two strands in
her initial thought processes: a woman seen through doors in houses relating to
the concept of “behind closed doors” and the Alice narrative, especially the
house of cards imagery, perhaps related to the country house.
Veronica Tonge is using a Victorian cottage
doll’s house to create an interior that subverts the “home sweet home”
message of the exterior, dealing with
issues and fears that we prefer to keep hidden. The interior will be like a
miniature stage set with illusions and illogical situations, such as a spiral
staircase in the attic leading only up to a distorting mirror, allowing for the
viewer’s personal interpretation.
