Each of the vignettes in this exhibition depicts one of the more than twenty places that artist Kate Davidson has called home. From the house she grew up in, to a single room of an apartment, to the corner of a kitchen, they are spaces (whether shared, loud, lonely, or sweet, across cities and states) that have felt meaningful in her life. Sketched and painted from memory, none are a perfect rendering of what these buildings actually look like. Instead, they recall the particular ways they feel, smell, and sound – that single creaky step in a hallway, the porch light Kate’s father always left on, a cabinet filled with ginger, the rattle of the brown line train going by, the cracking green-blue paint on her bedroom wall. They draw on the many ways it means to know a place, how little we actually pay attention to our surroundings, and what details seem to stick even after years of being away.
Combining two-dimensional and three-dimensional elements, the drawings are part daydream and part memory. They rest on a twisting throughline, navigating continuous curls, turns, double backs, and loops. All together, the scenes are a map of Kate’s life, a miniature cityscape of the many places that have given her roots.
