I’ve been thinking about home since the moment I left mine six years ago, and my work to date has reflected that. Now, in the midst of a global pandemic, I’m not the only person fixated on the indoor spaces we inhabit. Across the world, individuals, families, and couples are at home all day, every day. We are at home instead of at work, at the pub, waiting for a bus, or going to school. People in non-essential work are wrapped up in the walls of their homes. 

Homes on the one hand have a universal basic function for living—where we eat, wash, keep warm, cool down. Living in small spaces blurs the boundaries of rooms: beds hold their breath and shrink into sofas before breakfast, and sigh relief when reformed at nightfall; dining tables are folded up and tucked away; there’s no bath and not enough cupboards. Homes can be gigantic with places for leisure and work and separate rooms for separate activities. More places to enjoy, more floor to vacuum, and more places to hide. Homes in some cultures swell with people, several generations under one roof. Other societies allow homes to stand empty as thousands have no form of shelter. 

While we temporarily define being at home as a collective effort to support one another and our public sectors (rather than a place to hide from unappealing social gatherings), we can reflect on the stark differences in our experiences of home. This time inside gives some people space to repair chipped walls and paint fences, to get irritated with their kids and appreciate the work of teaching staff like they never have before. Others are ten days into an unpredictable sickness that has forced on them a loneliness and an isolation that saves other lives while theirs hangs in the balance. Some relax furloughed from work and others look around their home wondering if they’ll be able to keep up with the rent, unprotected by employment.

Through drawing, I’ve been responding to these questions of home and what our immediate intimate spaces reflect about us. As people generously send me images of their private spaces, so much of themselves manifests in the details. Taste and style evaporates. It’s so irrelevant when we are truly questioning what home is and what it truly stands for.

This is an evolving project and I welcome more images of your home to be considered for a drawing. Please send to contactkwhitford@gmail.com 

Katie Whitford was born in London and graduated from Goldsmiths University with a Fine Art degree in 2017. She won a scholarship for The Drawing Year at the Royal Drawing School, and a number of her pieces were chosen for their 2019 End of Year Exhibition at Christie's.

Using drawing, printmaking, and collage, Katie’s work explores the ways in which objects can give a sense of place--finding beauty in the everyday.

More of her work can be seen at: https://www.katiewhitford.com/