Working House

Working House is an abstract oil painting in which the house is considered as both a place of living and a place of work. The painting brings together interior and exterior space with fragments of many possible workspaces and projects, suggesting architecture as something provisional and continually in use.

One of the influences behind this work is the water‑powered sawmill at Dunham Massey, close to the main house but predating it and fundamental to how the estate once operated. Joe was struck by the poetry of this industrial site being central to the life of the house and its grounds. Working House holds onto that idea of a built space where labour, shelter and landscape are intertwined.