Home-Time

"Home-Time" was the first in a series of collaborative initiatives with emerging artists and pioneered by Erin Hughes. Hughes completed her MA in Painting at the Royal College of Art, London. After completing her BA in Fine Art at The Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, she spent four years living and working in Berlin where she was a co-founder of Cypher Space, which led to co-founding Cypher Billboard in London.

"Home-Time" combined a collection of the artist’s "postcard" paintings, set within a collage created from home improvement materials, together with antique vernacular works selected from the Robert Young Antiques Collection. The work attempts to function as a lens through which to look closely at our implied domesticated desires.

Hughes commented: "The backdrop loosely describes an amalgamation of rooms from my childhood home. The stylized flatness of the painted mural is an attempt to catch a continuously slippery perception of my own memories and the narrative of the antiques, which are integral to the work. The graphic and sculptural qualities and patina of the C18th Windsor Chair creates a curious disparity against the stylised collage and contemporary painting of domestic objects."

The chair would have originally been situated beside a fireplace and was made with a low seat to facilitate open hearth cooking, whilst the light and heat from the fire was enough to comfortably work on some household chores, such as needlework or knitting. The floors were rough earth or perhaps slate, so these seats were three legged to stand firmly on the uneven floor; a feature which is dramatised within the collage.

The postcard paintings were selected from Hughes’ growing collection of paintings from memory and by looking at the collection as a whole, she was able to identify prevailing forms or motifs. This installation groups the paintings that reflect a contemporary domestic experience.