The Longest Way Round, Is The Shortest Way Home
Satellite Project Space, London Ontario Canada

May 15-28, 2017

Over the period of my candidacy at the University of Western Ontario many changes have occurred for me personally. I moved back into my childhood home, reconnected with old friends, got married, lived apart from my husband and accepted his proposal to move to Belgium for the next two years. For me as an artist, the aforementioned events inevitably made their way into my artistic practice in a variety of ways.

Living in the suburbs has allowed me to recognise similarities in items of décor for the home (both interior and exterior) and evaluate how these choices are influenced, or whether they are choices at all. With access to a limited offering of home décor retailers, the choice of goods becomes limited by the selection on offer in that community. The selection is developed by a group of taste-makers who inevitably influence whole communities thus resulting in conformity of taste.

This calculated coherence of décor is sold through promotional images of ideal spaces that encourage the pursuit of the home decorator as an artist by means of assemblage. However, due to the conformist expectations the creative element is undermined. Within the suburbs, families of similar economic status live in proximity to one another. As a result, the suburban conformity has clouded my ability at a young age to perceive visual signifiers of status and class as well as symbolism pertaining to my own culture.