One Hundred Houses

Chris Kenny makes art out of found materials: twigs, maps, snippets of text.

The material for One Hundred Houses is provided by strangers’ landscape paintings, bought at markets and online auction sites (at the lowest bid, nobody else wanting them).

Each painting records a specific but unknown person’s view of the world.

What more potent medium could one use to make art than art? The appropriation of these abandoned pictures is an act of recognition and remembrance, rather than an act of vandalism.

Each painting is cut into a set of walls, facade and elevations, and assembled into a basic little dwelling. It is given a floor, a roof, a door and perhaps a window. The painting’s illusion of three-dimensional space is replaced by actual volume.

Each house is thereby transformed from a landscape to a memento mori object, but also a portrait, an inside-out structure reflecting a distinct individual’s outlook.

The houses come together as a town, a taxonomic collection or a chorus of many voices, beautiful and provocative.

The houses can be seen at the Rowley Gallery, Kensington Church Street throughout September and October.

Chris Kenny / The Rowley Gallery

Frames of reference

St Valentine

Valentine was an amateur priest; he was very unpopular with the Roman authorities because he kept conducting illegal Christian weddings. He attempted to convert the emperor, Claudius Gothicus, known as Claudius the Cruel. The emperor, who had previously liked him, was livid and sentenced Valentine to death. While Valentine was in prison awaiting execution, he discussed Jesus with the jailer. The jailer said, “If Jesus is so great then use his magic to restore my beautiful daughter’s sight”. Valentine managed it – the jailer was instantly converted and went round smashing pagan idols. Valentine would never see the girl again but left her a little love note signed “Your Valentine”.

Valentine was beaten, stoned and beheaded on the Via Flamina on February 14th, 269. His flower-crowned skull is kept in the Basilica Santa Maria in Rome. Other bits of his bones are distributed around the world. The pagan festival of love, Lupercalia, used to fall at this time of year but was replaced by Valentine’s Day. It is the day that birds find their mates, as described by Chaucer in his poem ‘Parlement of Foules’.

Chris Kenny / The Rowley Gallery

Frames of reference