LISA RYAN

“Photographing my home is something I do often as a form of recording life. My eye is regularly scanning for compositions—shapely shadows cast through large windows, odd vignettes of toys, bodies crooked in repose—that capture our family’s days. Our home is the museum of our lives, and these photographs are the catalog our future selves will remember it by.

With this photo series, I show my home using the same aesthetic elements it was designed with: minimalism, light, and line. The subjects are a mix of happened-upon and hunted-for moments. They often hint at human presence rather than depict it directly. I found that the very act of pausing to take a photograph transformed quotidian scenes, like crumpled clothes on a chair, that my eyes take for granted. I also felt a surprising joy in documenting color in my home—a simple orange my son drew, or the cheery yellow kitchen cabinets I recently considered painting white.

For me, home is where the grit of life goes on, and somehow that’s easier on all of us when it’s easy on our eyes. As the Robert Motherwell magnet on our fridge says, ‘Art is much less important than life, but what a poor life without it.’”

JUNE 2020