Justin Hounam Solo Exhibition

‘Bend’

Works by Justine Hounam

12th June – 21st June 2025. 10am-6pm

Curated by Dr. Jaeyeon Choi

Nova Gallery

1F, 195, Seoam-ro, Tongjin-eup, Gimpo-si, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea.

In Bend, Justine Hounam presents fabric sculpture that continues her exploration of memory, domesticity, and the emotional residue embedded in everyday objects. Known for casting familiar forms—chairs, tables, household items—Hounam uses fabric, & paint, to create sculptural skins that hold the imprint of human presence. Her work speaks to the quiet weight of absence, revealing the personal through material transformation.

This new piece, created specifically for ‘Bend’, engages with the idea of resilience and vulnerability—how domestic structures, like bodies and relationships, bend under pressure but rarely break. Using soft materials to capture the outline of something once solid, Hounam blurs the boundary between collapse and rest, strength and fragility.

Rooted in lived experience, Hounam’s practice bridges the personal and the political, drawing attention to what is often overlooked: the labour of care, the shape of memory, the traces left behind. Her contribution to Bend invites viewers to pause, reflect, and lean into the sculptural language of the everyday.

Justine Hounam’s practice explores themes of memory, domesticity, and the physical traces of human presence through casting everyday objects and furniture. Using materials such as fabric, household paint, and varnish, her work preserves imprints that transform familiar forms into sculptural skins. By capturing absence as much as presence, her pieces evoke personal histories and emotional resonance, reflecting on relationships, home, and lived experience.

Justine Hounam’s filmmaking extends her exploration of memory, domesticity, and personal history into moving images. She creates short films shot from a bird’s-eye view, capturing mundane domestic activities with an almost voyeuristic detachment. These intimate yet distanced perspectives highlight the routines and imprints of daily life, transforming ordinary gestures into meditations on presence, absence, and emotional weight. By using personal and domestic environments as a lens, Hounam’s films subtly engage with broader societal and political themes, questioning the boundaries between private and public, personal and collective experience.

After earning a Fine Art degree from UEL and an MAFA from CSM, UAL—funded by a scholarship from Anthony Gormley’s foundation—Hounam refined her multidisciplinary approach. She has exhibited widely and received commissions, including an installation at the National Trust’s Rainham Hall. She has also completed a residency at Cove Park, Scotland.

Balancing personal responsibilities, including co-parenting her granddaughter, Hounam manages an artist-led gallery in North London that supports underrepresented artists. She teaches at UEL and has led sculpture workshops at FE colleges. She has also guest lectured at CSM’s MAFA program.

Actively engaged in curatorial collaborations, she contributes to female-led exhibition projects. In March 2025, she participated in a joint exhibition, Sorry About the Mess, curated by Millie Walton. Hounam’s work continues to bridge sculpture, film, and social commentary through deeply personal yet universally resonant themes.

justinehounam.co.uk

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