Vanessa Baird's Domestic Nightmares at Drawing Room

Vanessa Baird's exhibition at Drawing Room in London, running from 1 March to 9 May 2021, presents watercolours and works on paper that transform domestic life into a nightmarish fairytale. The show, seen alone due to COVID-19 restrictions, features the ironically titled series 'There's no place like home' (2019–20) and pandemic-era works chronicling endless household demands. Baird borrows from Edvard Munch's aesthetic as shorthand for existential despair, as seen in 'Stuck in Gens and Affection' (2019). The works depict her as a middle-aged protagonist overwhelmed by responsibilities, with her kids glued to phones and her elderly mother bedridden. Grotesque humour appears in 'Love you to the stars and back' (2020), where a woman farts over a cowering elderly woman. A suite of watercolour self-portraits documents side effects of medication for a chronic condition: swelling, pain, dissolution. A Hokusai-inspired seascape wraps across two walls, showing drowning figures in a watery hell. In 'Living with teenagers' (2019), Baird stares hollow-eyed while teenagers flaunt seminaked sexuality; her T-shirt features Picasso's 'The Dream' (1932), contrasting male artistic virility with society's denigration of older women artists. The exhibition title suggests stories without beginning or end, representing a continuous oppressive present.