Marie Strauss’ exhibition Familiar celebrates the domestic with a series of paintings and ceramics depicting everyday objects of familial life.

From candles to colanders and portraits of her grandchildren, all of which form an intimate snapshot of memories and moments of quiet contemplation.
Strauss completes each still life  with loose, gestural brushstrokes and thin washes of colour.  She manages to capture a sense of familiarity and an ephemeral quality of often overlooked objects.

In Still life with ladder, the largest painting in the show, she depicts a still life of commonplace kitchen items from her home, arranged on a table against a light pink background, including a tall Jug, egg cups, a candle, and a lone lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. Dominating the foreground on the left of the painting is a large stepladder with a string rope holding it together. The painting sacrifices the detail of the objects associated with the traditional still life in favour of their importance as motifs of domesticity. The speed of her rendering of the cups and the ladder also suggests a personal connection with the items beyond their function, as if painted from memory. Strauss further emphasises the domestic with six large ceramic pieces that accompany the other works in the exhibition. The ceramics are cylindrical forms that, like the paintings, have minimal detail. The pieces widen and taper at different points along their column, giving them a functional aesthetic, as if part of a larger form.