As his landmark retrospective at Bristol’s Arnolfini gallery closes this weekend, Gill reflects on his prolific career
“The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned”
The home has inspired myriad artists. Be it documenting their family, themselves, their surroundings or something more abstract, photographers have revealed some of the most intimate elements of their personal lives against this backdrop.
“The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned,” Maya Angelou wrote in her book, All God’s Children Need Travelling Shoes. For many artists, the search for home is ongoing.
For others, the space is synonymous with togetherness and identity. “Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition,” wrote James Baldwin. Like Baldwin, many live in exile, away from their family, country and safety. Over the lockdown of the Covid-19 pandemic, the idea of home took on a new meaning – at once a place of protection, and confinement and isolation. But no matter who, where or what home is to you, there is no place like it.