Andrew Cranston
Andrew Cranston
Aberdeen Studio (My Blue Period), 2023, distemper on canvas, 212.9 x 182.4 cm, 83 7/8 x 71 3/4 in
Andrew Cranston’s figurative paintings are steeped in atmosphere; their fragments of narrative quickly dissolving into dreamlike visions of objects awash in colour, shape and texture. His works often depict domestic interior spaces – in a not-so-distant echo of the arrangements of classical still lives – but where such ordinary things as windows, items of furniture, and ornaments become conduits for far more uncanny formal explorations. Abandoned tables, libraries, tents and private chambers are just some of the scenes in which Cranston’s expansive imagination takes shape, drawing from his lifelong interest in storytelling through colour and form. His works take two distinct formats: large scale canvases worked in distemper and oil, and smaller paintings executed directly on hardback book covers. Often his paintings revel in a single colour field, whether oceanic blues, ruddy ochres, or blazing scarlets, within which his dreamlike worlds unfurl through the expressive treatment of surfaces. Their atmospheres flicker between the private and the theatrical, the picturesque and the chaotic, abundance and solitude, each in their own way beckoning the viewer deeper into their worlds.
Rudy and Dolly, 2024, oil on hardback book cover, 23 x 17.2 cm, 9 x 6 3/4 in
Stay with me, my nerves are bad tonight, the midges too, 2022, distemper and oil on canvas, 170.3 x 130.2 cm 67 1/8 x 51 1/4 in
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Niklas Roy
https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2020/02/niklas-roy-little-piece-privacy/
Berlin-based artist Niklas Roy isn’t just concerned about his privacy and protection online. To stop passersby from peeping into his workshop, he strung up a white, lace curtain stretching only partially across his window. Titled “My Little Piece of Privacy,” the ironic project from 2010 was established to offer seclusion to the artist, while recording those who walked past his space. Each outside movement triggers a motor to position the thin fabric in front of the person attempting to look inside.
Colette Cronin
My work centers on the notion of what is a home. It is an exploration of that which is most emotive, where is it that we belong, and how can we, in this modern state of upheaval, find our safe place. The paintings query if it is the presence of people that turn a house into a home, and what it says about our community when there are houses left empty. My work centres on the notion of what is a home. It is an exploration of that which is most emotive, where is it that we belong and how can we, in the modern state of upheaval, find our safe place. The paintings query if it is the presence of people that make a house a home, and what is says about our community when building are left empty. I utilise a clean, hard edge technique. Currently I am incorporating three dimensional elements into my work, physically building the scene behind stretched canvas and treating it then as a traditional painting. It is an experimental look at the spaces we occupy.
Kitchen Living, Acrylic on canvas, 2023, 20cm x 20cm.
Wardrobe, Acrylic on canvas, 2023, 20cm x 20cm.
Ana Vieira
Ana Vieira’s work is deeply concerned with the body, space, and the ways in which art is sanctified and received. Her artistic career spans multiple disciplines, including theatre, painting, sculpture, photography, sound, environment, and installation. This breadth reflects her poetic approach to art, which continually explores the boundaries of different media.
Her exhibitions, starting in 1968, highlight the themes of her work through their titles, such as Imagens Ausentes (Absent Images) and Ambiente (Milieu). These exhibitions examine dichotomies like public/private, presence/absence, interior/exterior, and transparency/opacity. For example, in one installation, a dining room scene is set up with plates, cutlery, and glasses, but the viewers cannot see it. They hear sounds from the space, but are kept at a distance by a mesh, reinforcing the separation between the public and the private.
Vieira's scenography often features elements like cut-out silhouettes, projections, hidden objects, and revealed rooms. These works extend beyond galleries into public spaces and even the natural landscapes of the Azores, her hometown. As her works expand in scale, they invite the viewer to physically engage with and inhabit the spaces, making the viewer’s body a part of the art experience.
DINING ROOM, ENVIRONMENT (1971), WOMEN HOUSE EXHIBITION, MONNAIE DE PARIS, FRANCE . 2017/2018
MILO'S VENUS, ENVIRONMENT (1972)
WINDOWS . 1978
St James Wood, Co Waterford
Ireland’s prettiest ghost estate: Quaint 800,000 euro thatched cottages sit empty because no one can afford them
Perhaps the fact that they started at an asking price of 820,000 euros each, when auctioneers say they are now worth just 200,000 euros, is the reason they lie empty.
Though some locals once suggested to a reporter that the unused development should be knocked, it has now been rescued by two Waterford city businessmen, who bought the 14 properties. According to the Property Price Register, numbers 11 to 14 were bought for €85,000 each last December, while the first 10 were purchased for €850,000 in February this year.
Paul Sermon
The bed is an object that is understood in all social and cultural contexts. Its semiotic language vary from the childhood context of security and play to the more complex context of privacy, intimacy and relaxation. When such a "charged" object is used as a telematic interface the user is confronted by the complexity of the object/interface and not the complexity of the technology. The telematic experience of communication is heightened when the technology involved is secondary to the primary point of importance, the bed interface. The technology disappears and becomes invisible. The bed is a very intensive object. The users are sometimes reluctant to enter "Telematic Dreaming", not because of the video technology, but because of the potential interaction on the bed in the public space.
Claire Barclay
“psychological relationships between human beings and the objects that we live with and produce.”
Thrum The MAC, Belfast, 2022 Dyed canvas, steel, rust, steel wire, linen thread, embroidered rust stained linen fabric, engine grease, machined aluminium.
Mattias Lind
mattias lind, a partner at scandinavian practice white arkitekter, has developed ‘chameleon cabin’ a house constructed entirely from paper. as the name suggests, the structure changes its appearance depending on the viewer’s perspective, comprising dual black and white façades. looking to explore the limits of the renewable and versatile material, the modular design has the potential to be extended to several hundred meters if required.
Claire Healy & Sean Cordeiro - Not Under my Roof
Not Under My Roof, 2009, Framed Photograph, 100.5 x 106.5 cm; 82.5 x 88.2cm.
Floor of entire farmhouse from Millmerran Queensland, wood, linoleum, 11 x 12 meters,
Song Dong
Song Dong, Same Bed Different Dreams No. 3, 2018.
Song Dong’s art confronts notions of memory, impermanence, waste, consumerism and the urban environment. Simultaneously poetic and political, personal and global, his work explores the intricate connection between life and art.
Same Bed Different Dreams No. 3 (2018) has been created using everyday household objects, such as crockery, pendant lights and decorative knick-knacks. These mundane objects are presented on a double bed carrying the memory of the rise of his generation, behind a polished case composed of salvaged window panels, the useless byproduct of modernization. Though each window has been carefully enhanced by Song Dong with vibrantly coloured mirror or glass, their recycled nature is nevertheless evident from the still flaking paint and rusting latches. These collaged remnants of people’s homes carry with them the history of a city and the lives of its people. As viewers are invited to peek inside, they are transformed into voyeurs: imagining their homes, their stories and perhaps identifying shared experiences, and primed to think of the future.
Song Dong has continued his investigations of the varied cultural meanings of windows. As barriers between living spaces and the wider world, windows offer key perspective through which people view the outside environment. In the process of being opened or closed, windows can alter the relationships between individuals and the external world. Through changes in color and form, they can transform the world’s appearance in the eyes of the viewer. Song Dong’s work builds on the rhetorical and aesthetic significance that has been associated with windows since ancient times.
Song Dong, Usefulness of Uselessness - Compressed Window No. 03, 2020-2021.
Do Ho Suh
Staircase-III, 2010. Do Ho Suh is a South Korean artist who works primarily in sculpture, installation, and drawing. Suh is well known for re-creating architectural structures and objects using fabric in what the artist describes as an "act of memorialization." Is home a place, a feeling, or an idea? Suh asks timely questions about the enigma of home, identity and how we move through and inhabit the world around us.
