Hi-Hi 

Written By Kesang Nanglu

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Hi-Hi is an entirely new body of work by artist Atleigh Homma, presenting intimate scenes of everyday domestic life and arrangements of objects from family heirlooms to treasured knick knacks. Conceived during the pandemic while temporarily living in her childhood home, the ten paintings on view are meditations on memory, cultural identity, care, and wellbeing.

 

The objects that appear in Homma’s paintings are for the most part collected from her family home, including personal belongings and those with connections to her family members. These are honoured in works like Yellow-Rose Still Life with Uncle Abe’s Painting and Leslie’s Vase. Working in the tradition of Dutch Vanitas genre painting, the still lifes imbue metaphorical meaning into objects, represented faithfully and composed in a way that highlights each item’s significance. Flowers and floral arrangements appear repeatedly as decorative ornament, but also a reminder of the ephemerality of nature and of life itself.

 

Each painting is highly detailed, revealing a strong personal attachment to their subjects, as well as a sense of the intense observation undergone to represent them. In Origami on Quilt, a patterned quilt and floral bedspread are neatly recreated in paint. The bright, playful palette gives the painting a sentimental quality, contrasted by the controlled style that implies a desire to make complicated and intangible feelings more concrete. In Colourful Objects Arranged, a hand blown glass bowl is nestled within a striped blanket, swirling the patterned fabric into its undulating forms. The pools of light and colour speak to a childlike wonder at the everyday magic revealed by the ordinary things that surround us. 

 

An assortment of glass vessels appear again in Reflected Postcards and Breakables, along with a small figurine of a geisha—itself a repeated motif within the series. A symbol of cultural ideals and of the preservation of traditional Japanese arts, its inclusion in Homma’s arrangements is at odds with her experience as mixed-race woman, growing up within Western society, its standards, and its fetishization of East Asian culture. In art, this history is most distinctly traced back to the nineteenth century following the reopening of foreign trade between France and Japan. Japonisme—the movement during this time when Japanese decorative arts became highly coveted throughout Europe—left a powerful impression on painters of the time, including Gustav Klimt and Pierre Bonnard whose works appear in the mirror in Reflected Postcards.

 

Decorative arts are a keen interest of Homma’s, who integrates needlepoint embroidery in her artistic practice. More recently, she has also taken up sewing, and crochet. The crochet blanket seen in I Can’t Get Comfortable was made by Homma, signifying the creeping unease felt even when occupying oneself with so-called leisure activities. This sense of uncertainty is felt in Winter, Spring, Summer or Fall. In it, a darkened room frames a large bay window looking out into a garden. Though the room is unlit and the windows are shut, nature and the freedom it represents is within reach.

 

Originating from a place of discomfort and isolation, Homma’s newest works tackle complex issues with tender optimism. The exhibition’s title refers to a phrase used between Homma and her paternal grandmother; a translation of the common Japanese phone greeting, “moshi moshi”. Like the meaning held by inherited gifts, language and other lost cultural traditions are often invoked and called upon unknowingly, highlighting an immense and obscured history. However, in each lovingly composed scene or still life is an opportunity for meaning-making and connection. The objects within them are made of fragile materials—easy to break and vulnerable to the wear of time—but they are also powerful symbols and tools for care.

 

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