Home Sweet Home (online exhibition)

Home Sweet Home

Online show - live on Instagram 16-30th November 2020

Home Sweet home is an online exhibition featuring an eclectic mix of artists whose practice
naturally engages with the theme of The Domestic. The exhibition will exist predominantly on
Instagram on the @rentedbythehour account and will run for just over 2 weeks featuring one
artists work per day. Direct access with photography and film is gained into the artists private
homes where their autobiographical responses to lockdown will be recorded.

This subject matter to this exhibition was chosen due to the extra time everyone is spending at
home as well as the repetitive language and actions we are being fed daily via the
media/government; "Stay Home", "Lockdown" “Save Lives” etc and how this enters our
consciousness as artists/human beings.

The phrase "Home Sweet Home" traditionally illustrates the feeling of relief of returning home
after some time away but particularly at the moment it can be interpreted as both warm and
bitter sweet emotionally. So much time at home can change the meaning of such a ubiquitous
wholesome phrase that is used in many different contexts from song titles to recipe books and
samplers in cross stitch.

This change in conciousness is reflected in the uncanny and unnerving aesthetic that the
Rented by the Hour platform, exhibitions and projects provides. The artists work in this show is
inexplicably bound with their personal interior lives, the domestic becoming an essential element
of creating meaning within the works. The works have an autobiographical, private and intimate
element, with artists making and exhibiting work in their own homes and personal living spaces.
The artworks, with the home setting as a backdrop and as an integral part of the concepts can
convey an array of emotional states, internal and outward conversations and observations.
Some of the works have elements of the performative, ritualistic and narrative whilst others
focus on banality, emotion, humour, the sublime, obsession and parenthood. The artists
involved talk about how they are feeling about the current lockdowns and the general
expressions of fear in society, what they are thinking whilst making work at home and reflecting
on the compulsive desire and urgency to continue to create despite limited access to studios or
equipment and a normal living routine.

Home Sweet Home -Contributing artists - Olivia Hicks, Laura Clarke, Bea Haines, Martha Todd,
Emma Critchley, Steve Littman, Christina Rich, Ashley Rich, Dick Jewell, Jonny Briggs, Zoe
Simon, James Winter, Agi Haines