Ada T

IB VISUAL ARTS 2024

Curatorial Rationale

My exhibition explores the concept of domestic spaces, and I have examined this concept through different mechanisms which culminate in examining how personal and collective experiences of family and the domestic home can be visually represented. As associations of the home have changed over time, my exhibition considers both negative perspectives to a domestic setting and more familiar positive interpretations of the idea. Negative associations I explored include feelings of confinement, but also historical attitudes towards domesticity for women especially in relation to the responsibilities and effects of motherhood on an individual. The central artworks in my exhibition however are the physical representations of my own positive memories, associations and responses to domestic spaces reflecting with my childhood experiences. The visual qualities my exhibition contains maintain experimentation with scale via miniature models and life size replicas to portray the inflation of particular familial values, traditions and behaviours, and synonymously the deflation of other individual experiences in the grander scheme, as represented in my artwork The Sundays. Moreover, my exhibition appears visually busy from the inclusion of differences in scale, medium, texture, and colour (especially as the colour scheme is warm-toned and bright), all intended to convey the casual yet intricate patterns and energy of life within a casual domestic setting, where individuals can express and represent their true selves as separate from their public social selves.

My works incorporate sculptural and textural elements featuring familiar images and symbols such as dinner tables, lamps, childhood quilts and family collections of mugs, among others, as to make my exhibition appear as though it is within a room in a house. Because of this, I aimed to include aesthetic qualities of nostalgia, comfort and security, while contrastingly also eeriness.

Determining how to establish these via presentation was straightforward, as I made sure to include warm tones, doilies for artworks to sit upon, and a family of house spiders’ representative of the dark secrets lurking in homes, and other familiar household objects as previously stated.

My body of work was made with an acknowledgment that while my childhood and experiences in my home are singular, there are collective experiences and memories that I have drawn upon through the inclusion of these images that viewers can connect to their own lives and identify with, which was an avenue into establishing a relationship with the viewer. Having viewers already established with a feeling of understanding informs their connection to the meanings and symbols portrayed within my works.

During the planning stages of my exhibition, several artistic influences informed the process of creating visually and conceptually meaningful art. I was heavily influenced by female artists

including Sally Smart and Louise Bourgeois, who both utilise a range of artforms to explore the nuances of constructing a feminine identity. Inspired by their practise, I have reflected their artistic approaches by examining the relationship between form and meaning. In particular, I have used traditionally feminine artforms such as textiles to explore how family structures have evolved in relation to the dependence placed on mothers. I was also strongly inspired by painter Pierre Bonnard and the domestic imagery that acts as a motif throughout his work. I have adapted some of his frequent imagery in artworks such as Pink Lady: The Garden Series and The Portrait Series such as a crouching woman and cats within interiors to inform my own work and mirror the idea of individual experiences and perspectives echoing collective ones. In relation to curating artworks to be the best representation of my ideas within an exhibition, selecting works to include was not a difficult process. I planned and created artworks that I felt represented my childhood and experiences living within my home, while I also produced works that represented experiences foreign to my own as inspired by literature such as Charlotte Perkin’s Gilman’s short story, ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’. Acknowledging that my experiences differed to even people surrounding me put the concept of domestic spaces into perspective and allowed me to define the line between a singular and collective experience. With this, I ensured I produced artworks that represented a variety of situations without losing focus of the personal nature of the exhibition.

4. Pink Lady: The Garden Series (back view)

4. Pink Lady: The Garden Series (front view)

artwork statements

1. The Yellow Wallpaper

Linocut prints on 4 papers

Overall Dimensions: 136 x 102.5cm, 70 x 51.5cm each

This artwork explores the most basic expression of domestic spaces, a family home. As the figurative centre of my exhibition, it represents familial connectivity and feelings of nostalgia and entrapment. Scale is a significant aspect of this sculpture, as the miniature encapsulates the silence of a busy home. At its core, this sculpture examines the importance of shared space and the people that occupy it, and how their lives can be felt and seen through their physical, personal spaces.

2. The Sundays

Sculpture, paper, wood, digital photography, architectural figurines

15 x 75 x 100cm

3. Do We Need Another Chair?

Hanging textile, photo-stencil screenprint on calico, various sourced fabrics

225 x 128 cm

This artwork depicts a dinner tablecloth, and as food is a crucial component of family and

culture, dinner tables are emblematic of the love and connection found in a household due to the commitment and care required in cooking. Aesthetic qualities of comfort and nostalgia mimic my own experience in the bright colours and soft textures of repurposed fabrics of my childhood. While not depicting people, I have shown the traces of enjoyment of good company in drink stains and displaced cutlery.

4. Pink Lady: The Garden Series

Series of 5 digital photographs on black board

40 x 63.5 x 40 cm

This series explores parallels between mothers as the metaphorical centre of families and the process of cultivating a garden. Pink Lady symbolises how historically women have been central to their husband’s work but snubbed from recognition, achieved by concealing the women’s face. The implication of this figure working within a traditionally male outdoor space raises ideas of changed views on gender and labour, especially as the work is presented within the confines of the shadow of the house.

5. I Want Wind to Blow

Sourced and repurposed table lamp with fabric collage

52 x 27 x 27cm

This artwork is a sculpture of scenes from a house stitched onto a lampshade. The cyclical nature of the lampshade represents feelings of being trapped in a life confined to the limitations of domesticity and suburbia. I have created the scenes with distorted scale, colour and perspective to mirror childhood drawings I produced to contrast the optimistic expectations of the future to current eerie feelings of restlessness and entrapment.

6. Portrait Series

Series of 5 digital photographs, on black board

60 x 84cm

This black and white series depicts the interiors of my home and portraits of people who

occupy it. This artwork is one of the only representations of people within my exhibition, two of whom are my parents candidly performing routine domestic tasks such as cooking and sewing. This series is black and white to express the perceived dullness of domestic lives, an idea reinforced by the younger subjects depicted staring into the camera in dread of their potential monotonous futures.

7. Woven And Now Stuck

Modroc and wire sculpture, on doilies

9 x 40 x 40cm

I have portrayed the family unit with spiders as they are animals feared in homes and whose Redback species is known for its females killing their male mates to protect their family. This is significant to my exhibition as the spider is a symbol of maternal protection, reiterated by

placing the spiders on a bed of sewn doilies that are a traditional pastime for women. The act of crocheting doilies parallels the weaving of silk from spiders which ultimately converges the two ideas.

8. Love Handled Like Palm Cards

Glazed ceramic sculptures

10 x 30 x 12cm

This artwork consists of three pinch pot mugs, each representing one of my siblings. This artwork reinforces the visible effects of human connection without people being physically present. This family bond can be seen in inanimate objects and more broadly, the physical space they occupy. The simplicity of the mugs’ design and their limited yet bold colour palette becomes harmonious when viewed in combination, as they become interconnected through centralising images from a family memory.

9. Put the Fishes on the Fancy Plates!

Glazed ceramic sculptures

Overall dimension: 675 x 44cm

44 x 43.5 cm each

This sculpture reiterates the importance of food as a basis for family connection, especially as fishes have cultural significance as do my memories of the feast of the seven fishes. The plates’ patterns mirror those from my grandmother’s china which are unused for fear of breaking them. This is reflected in the broken plate that is glued together, suggestive of the idea that familial bonds can never truly be broken, and how meals together can be considered a healing process.

IB VISUAL ARTS 2024

ADA t

artwork statements

Charlotte T