Anywhere You Are - Ellen Hausner

About

As a wanderer and a traveller, home and place have been elusive in my life. As I find myself ever more rooted, these artworks examine what it means to identify with a place, to be situated in a physical environment, and to have a home. Can one be at home anywhere, or does home necessitate walls and a roof? Do we carry the sense of home within us? Is home always a tangible space or is it a state of mind? My own experience is that home can be wherever I am, for the deepest place is the inner solidity of self; the process of finding an outer place is reflected by an inner surety. But the external place has a role to play in making a relationship to the land. The acceptance must be mutual: the place decides as much as the individual. It is a consensual agreement which involves commitment, like any relationship.

The artwork also explores entryways, portals, and going from one state of mind into another: travelling through many doorways only to end up at home. The paintings search for spaces behind and between the visible land- and cityscapes that make up our external environment. These liminal spaces are places of insecurity, yet there is a mystery and beauty here. Places of in-between are the territory of the unconscious and it is here we must go to find true safety. For is it possible to feel truly secure in a physical space when the psyche is unknown and feels undefended? And yet there can be a thin line between the sense of safety and that of feeling trapped. Doorways and corridors between spaces lend a moving counterpoint to the immobile weight of solid ground.

 Dates: 26-28 January 12-7