Camilla Marie Dahl

The Way Home signals a shift from the artist’s last solo exhibition that focused on Spanish architecture and captured the ways in which sunlight reflects off the stone used to construct many Spanish towns. Following her move from the US to Spain, Dahl has explored the differences between her rural American upbringing, her adult life in New York and her current home in the Spanish countryside. This exhibition leaves architecture behind to explore the natural environment, focusing on imagery of Mediterranean pines and cypresses that frame Dahl’s house. Since becoming a mother, the artist spends more time at home and more time outside. The Spanish lifestyle and her experience of motherhood combined have encouraged her to move at a slower pace, observing her environment through the eyes of her baby daughter. This new pace of life, radically different from her artistic career in New York, has transformed her practice. Taking stock between each piece to clear her mind, Dahl spends more time on preparatory work, producing more drawings and photographs. Less impulsive than before, there are now more steps to her process.

In her new environment, Dahl has not only moved away from architecture but also from the figure. The exclusion of human figures allows the artist to examine those subjects that many of us might overlook. Inspired by the hens she keeps at home, Dahl presents them as the main protagonists in this new body of work. The hens are partly a tribute to her daughter who loves spending time watching the chickens forage in their back garden. The hens are viewed from ground level, mirroring the vantage point of a small child, as Dahl presents the animal from her daughter’s perspective. These hens are almost regal and elegant as their bright red combs are lifted from pastel landscapes. In many ways, images such as Mother Hen project ideas of the artist’s own experience of motherhood. The hens are foregrounded as maternal figures that protect and nurture their eggs, portrayed in traditionally feminine colour palettes.

Alongside these sculptural paintings, Dahl has conceived three Vessel pieces, demonstrating an increasing departure from the flat canvas. Vessel I (Hen) recalls the form of a hen as seen from above. The second sculpture, Vessel II (Cypress), is an abstracted image of a cypress tree. Relatively new to the artist’s practice, these vessels present a more experimental interpretation of the forms that she encounters in her natural surroundings. Equally, the vessels echo the protective and maternal qualities of the hen paintings. Both sculptures are hollow, as if they keep something safe inside them. Dahl emphasises their curved and rounded figures that are built with the capacity to hold and protect.  

Above all, The Way Home is imbued with the artist’s warm feelings for her Spanish home. Mirrored in their colours and materials that mimic the fuzzy qualities of fond memories, these artworks remind us of the phrase ‘rose-coloured glasses’. Narrative is not the focus here. Instead, these artworks enjoy romanticisation, inviting the viewer to sit quietly for a moment and experience the calm of coming home.