Alyssa Burlin
Figtree High School
RESIDUAL ROOMS
Painting
Acrylic on found objects
Each room in an abandoned house is a fragment of memory, holding the sense of loss and longing that permeates spaces once filled with life. Residual Rooms is a body of work that examines the lingering presence of past lives and experiences within domestic spaces. By painting interior scenes onto found objects, my intention was to convey the emotional residue left behind in spaces that were once inhabited, loved and lived in. The found objects carry their own histories, and by repurposing them as canvases I combine their physical stories with the imagined narratives of the interiors I represent.
My artmaking practice has been influenced by the study and interpretation of the following artists: Jonathan Alibone, Duke Riley, Gina Soden, Geoffrey Ansel Agrons, Vhils (Alexandre Manuel Dias Farto).
Marker's Commentary
This quietly powerful painting body of work, Residual Rooms, is an exploration of memory, impermanence, and the lingering traces of domestic life. Comprising six works, each unique canvas draws from the haunting atmosphere of a dilapidated home, once lived in but now surrendered to time and neglect. These expressive yet carefully constructed interiors feature abandoned objects, eroding walls, and layered surfaces, each embedded with the residue of the lives of past occupants. There is irony in the presence of repurposed surfaces and items, once intended to preserve memory, now discarded relics themselves. Each room’s painting signals the demise of a space, that had once been filled with the hum of daily life and shared experience of family, now rendered still and uninhabited. Considered compositional viewpoints draw the viewer into these spaces, intensifying the sense of emptiness and abandonment.
A restrained palette of olive greens, mustard yellows, dusty apricot, and subdued browns evokes a sense of faded vitality. These colours not only suggest physical decay, but also the gradual fading of memory and the passage of time. The sensitively painted surfaces are rendered with assured, painterly brush work that replicates peeling paint, splintered timber, and crumbling plaster reiterate the erosion of the physical structure and the emotional history it once held. There is sensitivity in the way light spills across these empty rooms, drawing focus to the forgotten corners and worn furnishings. This light conveys the dignity of a space once cared for, now slowly dissolving into silence. Residual Rooms reflects on the fragility of memory and the spaces we leave behind. This sophisticated series is a commentary on urban decline, generational shifts, and the ways in which physical spaces act as vessels of collective and personal histories.