IKEA
Statement
I make oil paintings that are based on nostalgic IKEA showrooms. My paintings use IKEA’s branding strategy to talk about social class & democracy. The rooms are a stage for people to talk about what it means to look at a “design for all” concept. The work focuses on the nostalgia of IKEA showrooms as a way to regard & reflect aspirational spaces of 1980’s Americana.
The images reflect a certain degree of sterility -a room sans people to reflect psychological vacancy. They depict domestic interiors as quiet records of social class & psychological landscapes. Rooms hold the traces of how people live within economic limits & privileges. The paintings ask how inequality becomes domestic. They emphasize restraint -an aseptic observation of ready made showrooms which present fantasy lifestyles in situ. Minimal furniture functions as a quiet human trace of human presence without depicting the human figure itself.
I appropriate images from IKEA advertisements and transform the meaning from commercial ads to paintings by focusing on the antiseptic lack of people in the rooms. I edit & strip down the images. I use brighter or more vivid colors, applied thinly in layers, while staying true to the geometry and composition of the image. The concept behind each piece is as important to me as the execution.
Ikea
Statement
I make oil paintings that are based on nostalgic IKEA showrooms. My paintings use IKEA’s branding strategy to talk about social class & democracy. The rooms are a stage for people to talk about what it means to look at a “design for all” concept. The work focuses on the nostalgia of IKEA showrooms as a way to regard & reflect aspirational spaces of 1980’s Americana.
The images reflect a certain degree of sterility -a room sans people to reflect psychological vacancy. They depict domestic interiors as quiet records of social class & psychological landscapes. Rooms hold the traces of how people live within economic limits & privileges. The paintings ask how inequality becomes domestic. They emphasize restraint -an aseptic observation of ready made showrooms which present fantasy lifestyles in situ. Minimal furniture functions as a quiet human trace of human presence without depicting the human figure itself.
I appropriate images from IKEA advertisements and transform the meaning from commercial ads to paintings by focusing on the antiseptic lack of people in the rooms. I edit & strip down the images. I use brighter or more vivid colors, applied thinly in layers, while staying true to the geometry and composition of the image. The concept behind each piece is as important to me as the execution.