‘Interior Motives’ Hauser & Wirth London: review

The domestic interior is a bountiful setting for painters. It can be used to reveal the private lives of its subjects, drawing rich connections with the inner world and the unconscious. ‘Interior Motives’, a new London art exhibition at Hauser & Wirth, brings together three artists – Koak, Ding Shilun and Cece Philips – to reveal dreamlike and unexpected visions of domestic space.

Koak is a US artist whose comic-inspired paintings of languid bodies are drenched in intense hues. Chinese painter Shilun expands upon everyday domestic objects to create fanciful scenes driven by his own emotional landscape. British artist Philips floods her interiors with radiant light, placing the viewer in the position of an observer. The show is part of the gallery’s ongoing programme championing artists who are not on its roster.

‘Domestic interiors are familiar to all, but the works lure you in with a false sense of security as the surreal, dreamlike elements add a sense of unfamiliarity,’ says Isabella Bornholt, the show’s organiser and associate director at the gallery. ‘Koak’s eccentric colour palette, Philips’ eerie environments, and Shilun’s fantastical elements almost suggest alternate realities. At the same time, the artists’ use of such devices highlights the surreal aspects of both daily life and the world we live in.’

Many of the works include human figures, though these too are warped and removed from a clear sense of reality. Koak’s bodies, for example, stretch and bend with a rubbery quality that transcends human physicality. Some of her characters appear transparent and spectral, the walls behind them visible through their torsos. Philips sometimes blends her figures into their surroundings, with clothes matching the palette of the walls, or whole bodies seeming to become one with the light around them. Shilun’s compositions tend to place bodies in intense contact with one another, their poses suggestive of frenzied movement, as they become tangled with the group and surrounding scene.

‘The use of figures is really significant in connecting the physical with the psychological in the exhibition,’ says Bornholt. ‘They can stand in for the artists themselves, the viewer, entire demographics, or humanity at large, each with their own inner world. In this show, the dynamic between the figures and their environments is especially key as we are exploring the idea that the spaces that we inhabit can impact our sense of self, memory and belonging. Outer worlds shape inner worlds.’

The artists are each inspired by a rich array of sources, both historical and contemporary, from Japanese manga to Dutch Golden Age painters. These reference points impact the unusual perspectives and dimensions in the works, while also combining past and present outlooks on the role and qualities of the interior. ‘Interestingly, Koak’s aesthetic shows influences from Japanese animations and Ding Shilun is inspired by manga, but both artists’ approaches feel very personal to them,’ says Bornholt. ‘It’s like the way in which homes can reflect their owners. To me, the exhibition touches on the importance of crafting environments, whether real or fictional, that are safe places to express yourself.’

Over the years, painting has been a particularly effective medium through which to explore the interior, whether artists create realistic depictions or more surreal interpretations which reveal the invisible forces that shape our private spaces. ‘In “Interior Motives”, Koak subverts narratives on women painted by male artists, Cece Philips invites us to fill in the gaps of what goes unsaid, and Ding Shilun draws on pop culture and personal experiences,’ says Bornholt. ‘I think painting is really effective at allowing the artists to world-build and develop narratives within the environments they depict.’