Better Homes and Guardians

Savannah Jarvis and Seamus Platt

2021

Glicée print and oil paint on canvas

700 x 500 mm

Better Homes and Guardians explores the imagery of house and home, regarding the domestic setting as an extension of the self. Pairing painting and photography, Jarvis and Platt construct a form of documentation that simultaneously belongs to the day-dream and the real. Both artists are dependent on the construction of meaning via allegorical and discursive imagery, combining their practices of image trawling and digressive narrative for the construction of Better Homes and Guardians. Bridging desire and fantasy surrounding the concept of home with indexical expressions of individuals occupying space, the artists aim to depict a rounded expression of how we consider and mediate ourselves through domestic settings. Coupling the images with humorous text, the works speak to a deadpan take on the hopelessness and value of the aspirational individual as they navigate the probability of modern home ownership.