A Corner of Home Tom Lovelace
A CORNER OF HOME
Tom Lovelace
Published 5 April, 2020
In the days that have passed and the days that are to come, we'll all be spending more time indoors. A Corner of Home collects photographic studies and new works made by artists in their immediate environments; small snapshots of the impulse to create.
Edited by Trine Stephensen and Joanna Cresswell
1. Where are you living at the moment and how has that environment shaped you creatively? Can you tell us about a favourite detail of this place and why?
Tom Lovelace: I live in South London. A little house. With two young children, my girlfriend and I. My work has always been caught between the domestic and the industrial. I have previously referred to the workshop as my kitchen. Now the opposite is unfolding. Or at least I am trying to force that transformation. I have been negotiating the idea of work and production over the last few weeks. I am trying to use this new time and restricted space to simply slow everything down, whilst continuing to make in some manner and be productive. Art schools, like the rest of the world, are closed. In turn I am trying to motivate my students to continue thinking and making during this unusual time. And so I absolutely must practice what I preach.
My favourite place by far is sitting in front of my bookshelf. It represents a highly personal collection of influences and references. Significantly, it’s a repository that requires touch and time.
2. How have you looked at the materials of home differently in the past weeks? Are there parts of it that have revealed themselves to you in new ways?
The material of light and its quality as it strikes the back of my house is a new discovery. I have been trying to use this light as frequently as possible to test out new ideas and surfaces of interest.
3. Tell us about how you’ve been using photography lately? What are you making or putting in front of the lens?
Currently I am deep within a new body of work that calls upon the camera to document interventions and performances, with a focus on my body and spaces of minimalism. The camera is the audience. In recent months I had been working towards two performance works, which explored one's physical and psychological relationship with photography. They were both subsequently cancelled. And so I am attempting to carry that momentum. Trying to look forward.
I have also been looking back to At Home She’s a Tourist, a group exhibition I curated in 2017 for Peckham 24, London. The display exhibited the work of twelve European artists, significantly all of which were creating work either from the confines of their home, or with the domestic in mind. Explorations of unknowing and strangeness within the realm of the seemingly familiar was key. And this seems pertinent now. The show included work by artists such as Eva Stenram, Jonny Briggs, Clare Strand, Emma Bäcklund, Tereza Zelenkova and the duo Gabby Laurent & Dominic Bell.
Thank you Tom!
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Home Staging, 2019, Black and White Photograph (This image depicts my parents house and the home that I grew up in. Restaged and represented with black infinity theatre drapery. This work was a key work in my recent Interval exhibition at Flowers Gallery - 2019)
Home Testing, 2020, An image last week at my home. Experimenting with paper surface and light in my home. With the help of my daughter.
Clock Work, 2019, clock, arm, hole, time, Flowers Gallery
Clock Work, 2019, Installation, Flowers Gallery
6. 7. At Home She's a Tourist, Exhibition Installation pictures, https://www.tomlovelace.co.uk/at-home-shes-a-tourist