Artist Statement
“It's not living alone if you have a rifle under the bed.” Chuck Palahniuk

"We imagine our houses as shells that isolate and protect us from the outside world. Indeed, our fears of the Bad Man focus on what lurks just beyond the walls, walking around our windows and gardens. The home, however, can become a battlefield where we go to war with the very people we know so well. My work reflects on this gap in daily life when everything appears perfect, but
it’s impossible to relax because the world is exploding.

Furniture can speak volumes about human relationships. We project our personal experiences, desires and memories onto these everyday objects, each of which contribute to our shared idea of 'home'. Houses around the world are filled by identical IKEA furniture; in New York, Rome, Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, Sydney, or Barcelona we can sit and relax in the same armchairs and
eat at the same tables.

This comforting similarity provides a cosmetic happiness with which we mask our pain, illness, suffering and depression. In my installations I modify the common “skin” of the objects, covering them with iridescent glass tiles punctuated with copper wire. These pieces refer to the fragility of
the home and the impossibility of finding repose.

The seventies had a slogan that declared, “The private is political.” In recent years, there has been a trend to turn our focus inward in search of the illusion of domestic comfort; by transforming the gallery into a house, I confront my own expectations of happiness and safety. In this body of work, I create a frozen domesticity, exploring the structures and layers of daily life. Visitors become voyeurs. I show what usually is hidden. I say aloud what usually is whispered."

Silvia Levenson
2008

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