Wayne Youle is one of 14 artists, makers and designers exhibiting in How to make a home, a show exploring the small universe of home and the material politics of the objects and adornment we live with over time. We asked Wayne four quick questions about their work in the exhibition and what makes a home, read his responses below.

—

Objectspace: Can you briefly describe the material and making of your works in How to make a home?

Wayne Youle: I prefer to work with materials that have a history, have had a ‘job’, have done said job, and now have a new purpose with a new story and play a new role in my work. For example, the material that was used to make the chairs was originally my kitchen table and before that was the table of someone else.

OS: Can you share some of your thinking behind the works?

WY: Have you ever been in a home you didn’t know where form/function and frivolity were all blurred? I wanted to make the ‘furniture’ recognisable yet not necessarily weloming nor serving their purposes. The title of the two chairs comes from an actual experience I had in Sydney, where there was an artwork on an artwork, decorated with artwork – when the host told me to take a seat and I went to do so, she said “Oh not there...it’s an artwork”. My work nods to the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’, and to the craftspeople and home-crafters who make things ‘in the style of’ because they’re unable to have the real thing.

OS: How do you feel your work connects to domestic spaces and/or the way we adorn and dress them?

WY: The items that encroach on the chairs take away the ability for the chairs to do their jobs in this work, they actually make them uncomfortable – each chair becomes a shelf, a plinth and a dais for the things I personally have collected. The owl bookend holds up 31 sketchbooks and diaries, one for each day of the month of December. The swimming head is a piece from my collection of broken “ethnic carved figures” (TradeMe’s terminology, not mine). The work has food and fluid references with the wooden apple and the sake poodle, which makes sense as it was partially a table at one stage.

OS: How to make a home posits that what makes a home is the persistence of ‘things’ that inspire us to feel like we belong. Can you tell us about an object that has made, or does make, your home a home?

WY: Belong? I’m not sure about belong... belong to what? In my home it is clear I belong in the artworld, but I also belong to the ‘$65.00 op-shop couch’ people, I belong to the ‘one fancy coffee cup that I would never buy for myself’ people. I use the ceramics that I have made that others put behind glass, I put my failed paintings in my nine year old’s room because he loves them and I don’t. I have beautiful artworks that I have swapped with my peers because I could never afford to buy them... that helps me feel like I perhaps belong? I dont think I have a single item as such, they all speak to each other, they are physical things that tie to a certain time, a certain trip, a certain experience and a certain obsession.

—

More about Wayne Youle

Wayne Youle (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Whakaeke) lives and works in Amberley, Waitaha Canterbury. A graduate of the Wellington Polytechnic School of Design, his work is often humorous and addresses issues of identity, race and the commodification of cultural symbols. Youle’s work has been shown in national museums and public galleries throughout New Zealand and overseas. Recent exhibitions include Te Mōteatea a Maumahara, Wairau Māori Art Gallery, Land of Milk and Honey, The National and STICKS + STONES, {Suite} Gallery, all 2024. Youle is represented in Aotearoa by {Suite} Gallery.