Houses: Whimsical Folk Art Paintings by Ayin Es

Mixed media oil paintings with collage on canvas and found wood.

I moved more than a dozen times before I was even nine years old. My family uprooted us so many times, it was enough to make a kid go crazy. It was also difficult to make new friends because I was shy. Every time we moved, I was fooled into thinking we were settling into a new home. That would never be the case for me. I always felt a loss of a house, and then another. And as I got older, all I wanted was a house of my own where I could stay for the rest of my life. Creating these paintings are like constructing little artistic dream homes in my mind. They are recurring visions that never go away. Houses enter my dreams and, just like when I was a kid moving from place to place, I never knew what the result would be. My process is very spontaneous as I collage the work together and paint over the compositions. I never know what's going to come out, only that I'm building a new house to ponder upon.