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The title "Home Body" underscores the inherent tensions at work in domestic settings, where socially-prescribed identity and gender politics still furnish our so-called ‘safe spaces’.
Depicting moments of intimacy, a this new series of paintings, have been constructed as assemblages, combining various modes of expression such as sewn, painted and printed materials.
The exhibition introduces Self’s functional art objects, tables and chairs, to London, a recent development in the artist’s practice. These geometric props of quotidian items heighten the theatricality found within her two-dimensional works.
Self has been examining the domestic space as a site for both personal expression and performance. In addition to her visualisations of the physical trappings of home, the artist has fashioned a world where relational dynamics between various archetypes are played out.
Primary figures of unnamed women and men, unknown yet strangely familiar, interact with one another in various scenes, giving each other knowing looks across the gallery walls.
