Oil Paint, Layered Mirror and Glass, Iron, Wooden Frame
30″ x 24″
2024
This piece invites viewers to reflect on the subtle yet profound process of realizing that genuine belonging is found in spaces that are truly nurturing. At first glance, this home appears to be a place one could enter, yet what surrounds it — the foreboding leaves and the sweeping tarp — creates a heavy, unwelcoming atmosphere. The leaves, dark and unsettled, set the tone for the space, while the tarp’s sweeping nature offers a suggestion to move away. To deepen this narrative, the missing fence posts reveal points of access to a crude drawing of a window on a fragile piece of paper, worn from being folded and crumpled. The paper was placed where one would expect a real window, serving as a reminder of its absence — a subtle message that, had there been a real one, the access would have only led to a space that mirrored the weight of its surroundings. These elements are not mere details, but deliberate reflections of the home’s quiet understanding — an understanding that its seclusion was ultimately a form of care, sparing me from what could never have been for me.
I have a few of these houses—distant, sitting at dead ends. They’ve always carried a weight, an unseen heaviness that pulled down on them, a guilt I could sense, but never quite understand. They stood there, still and quiet—witnesses to something I couldn’t grasp. I lived with that weight, trying to connect the distance between myself and the space they represented.
Only now, in the comfort of reflection, do I begin to see the truth. It wasn’t about the houses themselves, nor the closed-off homes they embodied. It was about how, in my attempts to reach them, they never quite let me. There was something in their stillness—some quiet, protective push—that kept me from giving up what I couldn’t see I was losing. In that subtle resistance, I understand now how grateful I am now to have been spared. These houses weren’t barriers, but rather gentle markers of a journey back to myself.
Rachael Kucken 