Archive
Emily Peacock
Home Remedies for Cabin Fever
September 9 – October 7, 2017
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Friday, September 9, 2017
6 - 7pm
Exhibition Opening
Friday, September 9, 2017
7 - 10pm
“Family history and relationships, domesticity, and personal loss and tragedy are the foundation of my work. In the last four years I have experienced divorce, the untimely passing of my mother, getting remarried, and now the birth of my only child. The death of my mother has shaped my work, and life, more than any other experience I’ve had. Recently becoming a mother myself has only intensified the magnitude of her absence.
Navigating these experiences is often strangely humorous. Carol Burnett once said: “I got my sense of humor from my mother. I’d tell her my tragedies. She’d make me laugh. She said comedy is tragedy plus time.” The human condition and absurdity are both integral to the images I make. I enjoy the idea of making someone laugh but also cringe within the same image.
The vernacular aspects of life, domestic surroundings, collections, and middle class minutiae are all of interest to me. An ordinary object can hold a lot of meaning for one person but not the next, and the same is true of a photograph. How does one take an ordinary object and give it meaning? I like thinking about this phenomenon, which has become a guiding principle of my creative output.
All humans experience loss and pain, and from this commonality I enjoy connecting with people through my art, knowing they may relate to it on a personal level. Someone once told me the more specific you get with your work the more universal it can be. We all look the same from a certain distance.”
