Stephen Wozniak
House of Cards (Home Remedy)
2021
Pine lumber, mirrored medicine cabinets,
multi-colored PET window film, polyethylene caution tape,
PVC traffic pylons, wood screws, LED light
5’ 1” x 5’ 8” x 5’ 8”

House of Cards (Home Remedy) was exhibited at the Cameron Art Museum in the Illumination group exhibition from December 3, 2021 – January 9, 2022.

The idea of home plays a central role in my work as a fine artist. It’s a place in which many of our subjective perceptions and primary relationships are developed. House of Cards (Home Remedy) is about the precarious nature of self-discovery and self-healing. In this piece, the walls of a home have been removed to reveal the wooden framing that ostensibly forms a small barren bathroom: a place where many of us reflect at the start or end of our day. Each wall unit is the exact height and width of me, the artist. Together, the four units lean in on each other, like a house of cards, which appear to fold at any moment. The inward-facing, color-tinted, mirrored medicine cabinets in each unit offer a different way and place to reflect – on every side of the subject who imagines themselves in the center of the space – into infinity. The piece also alludes to the large steel cube Richard Serra sculpture, One Ton Prop (House of Cards) from 1969, but unlike that dense, dark and nearly impenetrable work, offers a way to look inside what would be a private space in order to see the light and accept the self.