Clarksville, TN – There is a feeling of campy nostalgia to the black and white images of Nashville artist Kit Kite’s X Housewife series that immediately creates empathy from female onlookers.
Ironing boards, utensils, and Tupperware are just some of the objects filling Kite’s large scaled photographs.
The short film and visual narrative spoken by the artist was created as a descriptive response to the title The X Housewife Portraits. Further enhancing the concept, the film is viewed in a stark white one-room-house installation.
Kite is a self-taught artist. She describes the work as a self-experimental portrait and installation series that depicts the cognitive differences of house and home. This series explores the artist’s personal displacement and separation within an isolated process, the objectivity of memory, materiality, and the limiting conditions of one’s physical landscape contrasted with the limitless longing to connect in relationship to another.
Treating within the images the traditional subject in reverse, backdrops become forefronts while the “self” is displaced from view. The human form is obstructed by the posing scenes made up of the common domesticated tool and household object. By enhancing the displacement of one’s own physical surroundings, the object and its value is exploited and defined.
The X Housewife Portraits was a concept first developed on Instagram. Using a mobile device, Kit shot hand-held self-portraits in her bathroom mirror while posing with an assortment of obstructions made out of common objects found around her house. These tilted drafts documents her process and depicts the assimilation of one’s identity, isolation, and temporary disappointment- a prolific study by the artist, resulting in over 7000 drafted self-portraits.
Kit Kite will be presenting a gallery talk for the museum’s Art & Lunch program on September 7th. The event is free to the public and begins at 12:15pm. The X Housewife series will be on exhibit in the Customs House Museum’s Orgain and Bruner Galleries through October 22nd.
For more information on above exhibition contact Terri Jordan, Exhibits Curator, at 931.648.5780 or terri@customshousemuseum.org.
About the Customs House Museum
Located in the heart of historic downtown Clarksville, Tennessee, the Customs House Museum and Cultural Center is the State’s second largest general museum. The original portion of the building was constructed in 1898 as a U.S. Post Office and Customs House for the flourishing tobacco trade. Incorporating a number of architectural styles, the original structure is one of the most photographed buildings in the region.
With over 35,000 square feet of the region’s best hands-on activities and special events…people of all ages agree – the Customs House Museum is well worth the stop!
The Explorer’s Gallery is packed with fun, learning and fantasy in Aunt Alice’s Attic, McGregor’s Market and kitchen, and of course – the Bubble Cave! Finally, get “all aboard” to see our fantastic model trains. Our volunteer engineers “ride the rails” every Sunday afternoon from 1:00pm to 4:00pm.
Regular museum hours are 10:00am to 5:00pm Tuesday through Saturday, and 1:00pm to 5:00pm on Sundays. Adult admission is $7.00, Senior Citizens and College ID $5.00, Ages 6 to 18 $3.00, and under six years and Museum members are free.
The Customs House Museum is located at 200 South Second Street. For more information, call 931.648.5780 or visit their website at www.customshousemuseum.or
