Art Exhibit: "Homesick 2023: Selected Works by Savi Valle"

Artist statement

Homesick is a collection of various paintings and digital illustrations that transcend different important spaces of my personal life. As the title suggests, these spaces are interiors that one would turn to seek the comfort and familiarity you would have in a safe and comfortable space. Often, those “everyday” “simple” moments are overlooked and yet tend to give us a sense of normalcy.

Most of the works on display were created throughout the 2020/2021 school year—amidst the Covid-19 pandemic at its high. I lived alone in a house a minimum of 2 hours away from my most important and comforting people. During this time, grappling with a lot of confusion, loss, and unfamiliarity I turned to those “everyday spaces” to help connect to those places and people I missed the most.

It started as a reference image for a painting class I was enrolled in at the time and has now become something I now connect to throughout my artistic process. Many of the pieces in this exhibition are of the same house and spot. Reflecting on the mundane nature of visiting the same important spot however many times you would during the day, and then reflecting on those spaces in a time where you cannot physically be present. There are some outliers that demonstrate this as a connection to my artistic practice still as I continue to grow and move to new spaces and experiences.