The Farm House [ 18" x 24" ] ·Carbon pencil, blackening watercolours, and inks on paper mounted to canvas · [ 2014 –2024 ]
The mask of home and the weight of memory it carries.
This haunting rural scene reclaims the farmhouse as both shelter and symbol of deeper roots. The structure stands weathered yet enduring, surrounded by fields that fade into shadow and memory—echoing the lineage in the Americas since before 1609, the pull of home, and the quiet labor of survival across generations, but in my own life the refuge taken in upstate New York after 9/11. Where the kindness of the people there saved my family. I lost the mask I had where I thought I was invincible, and found a cross road that changed me forever.
Windows glow faintly in the blackening dusk, hinting at lives inside: stories of birth, loss, resilience, and the slow accumulation of time. The drips and layers mirror the land itself—scarred by seasons, yet fertile for what comes next. No overt figures, but the house itself becomes the unmasked self: stripped of illusion, holding the weight of history while opening to possibility.
A meditation on place, inheritance, decay, and quiet rebirth—dark yet eternally hopeful in its steadfast presence.
Dark yet hopeful.
Studio view, or related works: blairaiken@raincage.com
Inspiration & Personal Connection
This painting draws inspiration from Egon Schiele’s *House with Shingles* (1915). Schiele’s stark, angular depiction of the building — with its sharp lines, distorted perspective, and unsettling presence — has always stayed with me. He painted the house as if it were alive, carrying a quiet psychological weight.
In my version, the farmhouse becomes a deeply personal space — a refuge. After the trauma of 9/11, this house represented safety, stability, and the quiet comfort of home when the world felt shattered, and we were taken in after leaving the city. Naked and exposed, while the skull looming above reveals what lies beneath the surface: the masks we wear, the hidden truths we carry, and the tension between the shelter we seek and the realities we cannot escape.
The blackening layers trace the slow accumulation of memory, isolation, and endurance within the walls of home. Through this work, I explore how the places that shelter us also shape us — how they can both protect and confine, and how we must eventually confront what they have made of us.
Yet even in this quiet, shadowed interior, a faint gleam persists — a quiet reminder that beneath the weight of the past, something essential of the self can still emerge, unbroken and hopeful.
Dark yet hopeful.
Studio view, or related works: blairaiken@raincage.com
Dark yet hopeful.
Egon Schiele, House with Shingles, 1915