"Unreal Estate" by Elizabeth van Gelder

This series began seven years ago when I was searching for a subject to paint that had significant resonance for me, and the word “house” kept reappearing. The word “house” was loaded with more meanings than I could possibly address, and the opportunities for visual associations were unlimited. House, as an image, could be portrayed literally, symbolically, imaginatively.
 

I began to research the subject of house as a concept, both psychological and physical. There are two books in particular that I found especially illuminating. In Psychology of the House, Olivier Marc commented that, “… architecture was perhaps the first of all the arts” and “… the house was the most perfect expression of the self.” In The Poetics of Space, Gaston Bachelard says, “The house shelters daydreaming, protects the dreamer, and allows the dreamer to dream in peace.”
 

A house can be so many things—a cave, villa, hut, castle, nest, palace, tent, cottage, igloo, yurt, apartment—to name a few. A house is a sanctuary, a refuge, a dwelling place for the body and the mind. It is a container for rituals, traditions, and cherished possessions. It holds memories, secrets, grief, joy, fears, and fantasies. It can be a place for solitude and camaraderie. It has been compared to the mother’s womb, a place where we can listen to our own heartbeat.

 

Although I have had the good fortune to live in beautiful homes throughout most of my life, I have never lived in a house that I have owned. Since we are so often told that home ownership is synonymous with the American dream, this subject is one that has weighed heavily on me for quite some time. One of the most wondrous things about being a painter is that painting is like magic: you can make things appear and disappear; you can create dialogues and relationships by merging the shapes, tones, and colors; you can invent whole worlds. So I began to paint houses, real and imagined, mostly imagined—hence the title “Unreal Estate.”
 

The colors in these paintings are reminiscent of houses in my life, past and present. Many of the patterns refer to textiles I have collected. Some of the shapes are recognizable decorative objects; others are personal or universal symbols. Since this body of work was produced over a seven-year period, there is a great deal of stylistic variation. I have enjoyed playing with ideas as well as materials, while attempting to give a poetic voice to a lingering preoccupation.