Statement
The interactions and intersections between domestic and external environments have been my overarching theme for studio four. In looking at these intersections, I began to think how the domestic changes along with landscapes between places. This led to themes of belonging and migration shared between both animal and human experience.
I paint in acrylic mostly, but have also experimented with printmaking, oil paints and stencils during this studio module. Colour has become a focal aspect of my work in relation to migration and the different natural and domestic palettes in the world. The hacienda design for the degree show with ultramarine blue and bright orange is typical of central American wall colours, whereas the neutral palette of the other window is typical of domestic design in the USA.
For the first exhibition, I produced a set design model for the Ibsen play ‘Lady from the Sea’. I constructed this wooden installation to be a freestanding object before painting doors and waves onto the panels, a surreal composition inspired by Lucy McKenzie’s ‘Mrs Diack’. Originally interested in immersive installation, I found inspiration in the work of Ilya and Emilia Kabakov whose practice is centred around place and migration, which connects with the Ibsen play that inspired this work. A woman is trapped in her marriage and domesticity, dreaming of the sea from her childhood and the freedom it symbolised to her.
In December, I produced a painting ‘Rainforest shower’ on a handmade canvas. This painting was surface experimentation for looking at how acrylic works on fabric as opposed to wood or a wall. I placed the painting on my desk in the open studio exhibition, this informal display suggesting new interactions with previous paintings.
The Kabakovs’ practice and a continuing interest in liminal intersections resulted in my art exploring migration over the past semester. In the interim exhibition I began to use windows as a visual metaphor, encouraging a viewer to think about changes of perspective and vistas through a liminal frame between the domestic and outside world. I constructed large-scale fake window frames onto background boards that I then painted with trompe l’oeil landscapes.
In keeping with my connection of human domestic and the external environment, I began to look at parallels between bird migrations and human ones. Adham Faramawy and the film Proposal for a Parakeets Garden[1] inspired me to think about people and animals who adapt to live in new environments after being displaced by colonialism, violence or climate crisis. Faramawy uses the parakeets as a symbol for human migrants, his voiceover telling the history of these birds and how they are ‘subject to regular appeals for culls’, which is suggestive of nationalistic voices and media in the UK. The message of the film ‘Let them come, share the abundance that your fathers stole’ is, I think, a highly important message in contemporary society particularly in recognition of colonial culpability.
My final work is a mural that visualises the landscapes and spaces of Latin America and the USA. I chose to do a mural because of the Latin American history of telling mass narratives through walls, like the work of Diego Rivera, Siqueiros and Orozco. Installed within the mural is a window adapted with a hacienda curve and painted with a courtyard scene in disjointed perspective, to indicate how many different levels/views are available from one position of looking. The other window is in the style of a Southern USA home that has many architectural influences from Spanish and Central American styles. I am indicating aesthetical migration, where styles from Latin American interiors have come into the American domestic.
In keeping with Faramawy, I researched birds that originated in Latin America and now have established permanent populations in the USA, to symbolise the people who have similarly been born or have heritage in Central/South America but migrated to the USA. Pizarro’s study on the way that Latinx identity can be traced through birds is exemplified in his finding that the ‘association between birds, their habitat, and their habits [are] a powerful connection between participants’ roots and routes[2]’. I think the idea of using birds as symbols of home and identity shows how these aspects of self can transcend borders, much like the fact that Latinx identity connects with both Latin and North America. Pizarro’s article gave examples of birds that people of Latinx identity connect with, which will be incorporated into my final mural.
[1]“Works - Adam Faramawy”, Adham Faramawy, accessed 5 May 2025, https://adhamfaramawy.com/work/works/.
[2]J. Cristobal Pizarro and Brendon M. H. Larson, " Feathered Roots and Migratory Routes," Nature and Culture 12.3 (2017): p.202.