Hostile Home | 2023

Medium: Hand-felted merino wool

Dimensions: 23.4 x 33.1 inches

The piece Hostile Home is an oxymoron, where the textural surface of the work reminds of the warmth and safety attached to the word home, and the blue & red wool colours resemble marks of bruises, injuries, and violence that may or may not get completely healed. The coloured wool diffuses to create a blurry and flowy watercolour-like effect, resembling a futile attempt to subsidise the pain and trauma of domestic & territorial disputes and violence. This leads to the question of whether could the home and homeland be both; a place of nostalgia, childhood memories and yet a hostile space torn apart by territorial disputes. Does the home then become a sweet yet bitter place? Maybe for some, it always was and will always be; a place of comfort that they cannot go back to for it doesn’t exist any more.