I.O.U., 2019, galvanised mild steel, 60 x 36 cm
Settlement 11.37am
Settlement 1.12am
Door Key pendant, 2019, cast 925 silver and 925 silver 20 cm box-chain, and Keyhole ring, 2019, cast 925 silver signet ring
Time Frames brings together new works from the Settlement series formulated around images captured as low res iPad screenshots while viewing real-estate advertisements in Australia. My Settlement search criteria is a two bedroom property in which to live with my family for under $250,000, which is the maximum limit of a loan I am capable of servicing on my income as an artist and part-time lecturer.
I have selected images where clocks and records of time are present as a way to engage with the contradictions found within these real-estate images and my collecting of them. The Settlement images document intensely personal spaces and tastes while also representing an instrument of global economies where the home has become completely commodified as the primary means of accumulating wealth and security today. These interiors seem to display the opposite. They feel retrospective, self-reflective, humble and real and remind us home is actually temporary and ‘you can’t take it with you’.
A domestic scale wrought iron gate – Settlement – physically embodies borders and entry points, providing security to someone while ensuring exclusion to someone else. I.O.U., a re-galvanized steel boot-grate is placed on the floor like a doormat, reminding us how continuing colonising and capitalist forces impact how we acknowledge, manage and share where we live. A silver signet ring shaped as a door lock and a silver door-key pendant necklace, are both souvenirs and mementos of the home and all the houses we have lived in and are yet to live in.
Elvis Richardson 2019
Installation images: Docqment
Artwork images: Nick De Lorenzo
