Are You Coming Home?
A joint exhibition of paintings by Sophie Keys and Sandy Kiralawella, exploring themes of domestic space, personal history and queer identity.
Notes on Sophie’s work –
Sophie’s current artistic practice delves into the intimate interactions between light and domestic spaces. This exploration stems from a desire to understand how a living environment can evoke a spectrum of emotions, reflecting and shaping our identities, relationships and sense of belonging. Central to their work is the inspiration drawn from fellow queer artists, particularly the concept of the queer household.
Each piece explores the interplay of light within these domestic environments, using colour and texture to evoke feelings tied to comfort and isolation; they hope to create an experience that invites viewers to reconsider their own relationships with domesticity and the emotional weight it carries.
Notes on Sandy’s work –
Sandy’s work takes more of a visceral approach in discussing lived queer experience. Working on unconventional material (namely his ex-lovers t-shirts, his estranged fathers chinos and the kitchen cupboard of the house he grew up in) he aims to question what it means to be a ‘man’ and what has influences society to create certain tropes around manhood and sexuality.
One such trope is religion – a motif carried across all of the pieces presented in this show. Simultaneously inspired by photos taken in churches across Europe, and self-portraits taken in little to no clothing, the brash religious imagery invites viewers to consider how the cross, and the institution that upholds it. as created ‘sinners’ who needed to ‘repent’.
The exhibition photographs found below are courtesy of Sandy Kiralawella.
