Abbrazzu, 2026, Mixed media with collaged ephemera & handmade papers, acrylic paint, photo transfers & mediums & charcoal drawing on paper, mounted on cradle panel. Finished with Isolation coat and Gamblin Gamvar satin varnish, 17” x 17”.

To me, home is less a physical place than a feeling. Human beings strive to make where they live feel like home because it is more than bricks and mortar, more than furniture and possessions. Home is where we feel safe, where our customs and traditions take root, where memories accumulate, and where we become part of the fabric of a community. Perhaps we understand the meaning of home most clearly when we witness those who have lost it through natural disasters, conflict or war.

Travel offers another way of understanding home. Stepping outside our own familiar world broadens our appreciation of privilege, safety, history and belonging. It is only by stepping outside our own experience that we begin to appreciate the many ways people create a sense of home. During an art retreat in Sicily in 2025, I was struck by the extraordinary depth of its history, the architecture left by successive cultures, the visible scars of war, and the remarkable diversity of its people and neighbourhoods.

This body of work responds to my experience of Sicily not as a postcard, but as a rubbing. I was deeply moved by the coexistence of beauty and hardship: boarded-up windows beside elegant apartments, crumbling buildings neighbouring ancient churches, and reminders of conflict woven into everyday life. Amid these contrasts, people continued to build lives, communities and a sense of home. My work reflects that experience, exploring home not as a destination but as something created through resilience, memory and belonging.