Desk & Table
Bedside Table
I am Stupid
Chest of Drawers
Justine Hounam
Bio
After completing an Architecture degree, Justine returned to education in 2011, undertaking an Art Foundation at the Mary Ward Centre. Subsequently, Justine earned a First-Class Honors degree in Fine Art at UEL, focused on Sculpture and Printmaking. Following years of developing her practice at the Bomb Factory in Islington, where she had her first solo exhibition, Justine received a scholarship funded by Anthony Gormley's foundation to pursue an MAFA at CSM, UAL, graduating with First-Class. There, Justine refined her practice of casting furniture with fabric and household paint to create imprints, alongside incorporating filmmaking to add layers her work. Justine is currently in the 2nd year of a part-time 5-year Professional Doctorate in Fine Art at UEL.
Becoming a single mother age 20, Justine has navigated a lifetime of responsibilities, including co-parenting her granddaughter. Justine is a hourly paid lecturer at University of East London, taught sculpture workshops at FE colleges including Mary Ward Centre and Havering College, and been asked to guest lecture at CSM (MAFA program). Notable achievements include a commissioned installation at the National Trust's Rainham Hall and participation in a residency at Cove Park, Scotland. Additionally, Justine is part of two female-led curatorial teams collaborating with external organisations to produce exhibitions. Justine will be showing in a joint exhibition with Donna Poingdestre in Portsmouth this May.
Creative Practice
Justine Hounam is both a sculptor and filmmaker based in London, and her artistic practice revolves around exploring the connections between individuals, their homes, and household objects, symbolising physical, psychological, and metaphorical aspects of identity.
Hounam's background in architecture shapes her interest in form and materiality, leading her to experiment with sculptural processes in order to innovate new techniques. Justine makes bodily sculptural forms resembling hardened shells by layering household paint onto fabric stretched over domestic wooden furniture. When removed, akin to skin pulled from a body, the fabric retains the imprint of the object it covered. These sculptures, suggestive of territory, reveal the contours and aging of the furniture within. The materiality of the objects is integral, as they contain memories, subjectivity, and personal space, whilst also having the ability to display the erosion of time and experience, which get imprinted onto cloth. Hounam sees the material and its idiosyncrasies as symbolic metaphor of skin and scar tissue.
In addition to sculpture, Hounam produces short films shot from above (birds eye viewpoint), capturing mundane daily tasks in domestic life. Through these films, she uses personal and domestic environments as a backdrop to also question broader societal and political concepts.