I am the house and the person of that house
Alicia Nauta
Flea Market Gallery
46 Turner Crescent
Opens Sunday 16 October
Images collected from earlier publications, such as home decor guides from the 60’s and 70’s, botanical guides and encyclopedias, and pre-computer graphic design manuals, form the basis of the work. These images are then manipulated by photocopying and cutting and pasting to create collaged compositions, which are then screen printed by hand.
By drawing on shared visual fragments of the past, the compositions are reassuringly familiar. At the same time, these visual fragments are combined in a way that challenge logic, space, and time, leaving the viewer unsettled or alienated, questioning reality. The compositions reflect on the dualities and exchanges present in all forms of human and natural life: with light, there is darkness; with progress, there is decline. Environmental degradation, the crumbling of civilization, abstracted and psychedelic reality, domestic space, and human belonging are key themes that are explored. Within these pieces lies a simultaneous celebration and mourning for a world we are only passing through. It has been here before us, and will remain long after we are gone.
The screenprinted wallpaper, titled Nana and Helper, was inspired by the quilters of Gee’s Bend, Alabama, as well as a vintage wallpaper on the ceiling of a room in a family cottage. With this work, the artist depicts a fragment of domestic life: our homes and objects are transitory, temporary structures that offer us sentimental value, helping to ward off feelings of isolation and loneliness. This piece struggles with the desire to find a place to belong to without claiming ownership to that place.
