"at home"
Shelter is a human need, we have an instinct to create, adapt and personalise our living spaces. Since the beginning of time man has sought comfort and protection from the elements, originally in caves and gradually evolving into increasingly weatherproof, warm, comfortable and sophisticated structures, that we like to call “home”.
Buildings that have been our homes or working places, are often special in our memories, (hopefully happy ones). We all share an aspiration and ambition to create and enjoy happy homes, they are synonymous with the ideal of joyful and secure family lives and as the old saying goes: “A man’s home is his castle”, however humble it may be.
For generations, teenagers dreaming of independence, newly-wed couples, ambitious working class families, better off merchant classes, high society and even noble families have shared common feelings towards creating their own unique places, varying from somewhere simple to “nest” and live peaceful independent lives, to significant buildings created to display the wealth and status of the owners.
Generally there is a desire to build, maintain, decorate, improve and protect these spaces. They become the centre of our lives and families, so inevitably motifs and representations of buildings and homes have featured in the naïve and folk art works of creative minded people. A sense of place, memories, tributes to nostalgia, status, even dreams and ambitions have been represented by house motifs.
For our 2021 Bada Week Exhibition we thought it would be interesting to loosely draw on this resource and explore a few various different naive and primitive house-form motifs, architectural models, depictions of buildings and homes that we have discovered in multiple media and some of the ways that they have been incorporated into the narrative of British and European Folk Art.
Buildings that have been our homes or working places, are often special in our memories, (hopefully happy ones). We all share an aspiration and ambition to create and enjoy happy homes, they are synonymous with the ideal of joyful and secure family lives and as the old saying goes: “A man’s home is his castle”, however humble it may be.
For generations, teenagers dreaming of independence, newly-wed couples, ambitious working class families, better off merchant classes, high society and even noble families have shared common feelings towards creating their own unique places, varying from somewhere simple to “nest” and live peaceful independent lives, to significant buildings created to display the wealth and status of the owners.
Generally there is a desire to build, maintain, decorate, improve and protect these spaces. They become the centre of our lives and families, so inevitably motifs and representations of buildings and homes have featured in the naïve and folk art works of creative minded people. A sense of place, memories, tributes to nostalgia, status, even dreams and ambitions have been represented by house motifs.
For our 2021 Bada Week Exhibition we thought it would be interesting to loosely draw on this resource and explore a few various different naive and primitive house-form motifs, architectural models, depictions of buildings and homes that we have discovered in multiple media and some of the ways that they have been incorporated into the narrative of British and European Folk Art.
This small collection, with a core of “House” motif schoolgirl samplers and a group of primitive vernacular model buildings, (including a rare small collection of folk art weather-houses), has been put together for our participation in the 2021 BADA Week initiative and will be accompanied by an illustrated digital catalogue. It is intended as a simple celebration of the creativity of children, untrained artists and artisans, all of whom have all been inspired or instructed to share representations or visions of their homes or other buildings.
We have called it “at home” to mark the reopening of our gallery and our first physical exhibition since the Covid19 Lockdown. We will of course also be “at home” in our gallery and greatly look forward to welcoming visitors back here.
The Exhibition Preview is on Thursday 14th October from 6.00-8.00pm at 68 Battersea Bridge Road, London, SW11 3AG, and the exhibition will close at 6.00pm on Friday 29th October 2021.
All are welcome, and in the interest of your safety and wellbeing, we would be grateful if everyone can please respect social distancing. We also hope to manage numbers, so it would be very helpful if you could please let us know if and roughly when you are planning to join us and we will be delighted to book you in.
We have called it “at home” to mark the reopening of our gallery and our first physical exhibition since the Covid19 Lockdown. We will of course also be “at home” in our gallery and greatly look forward to welcoming visitors back here.
The Exhibition Preview is on Thursday 14th October from 6.00-8.00pm at 68 Battersea Bridge Road, London, SW11 3AG, and the exhibition will close at 6.00pm on Friday 29th October 2021.
All are welcome, and in the interest of your safety and wellbeing, we would be grateful if everyone can please respect social distancing. We also hope to manage numbers, so it would be very helpful if you could please let us know if and roughly when you are planning to join us and we will be delighted to book you in.
View the Catalogue Here
