We're excited to present a deeply personal body of work by celebrated interiors photographer Chris Mottalini that examines different aspects of home, family, childhood, memory, culture, and landscape. The series, titled ‘Home Studies’, is the result of an intimate collaboration between Chris and his son, Nino, who constructed and photographed elaborate still lifes depicting their home life in New York and Thailand over the course of four years (2022-2026). A selection of limited edition photographic prints will be exhibited at Available Items from October 9th through November 15th.
Chris Mottalini is a widely published and commissioned photographer of architecture, interiors and design, who lives with his family in the woods of New York's Hudson Valley. In 2022, when Nino was five-years-old, Chris asked his son to construct and paint a collection of cardboard and paper surfaces and objects as a simple creative experiment. Nino also helped forage fruit and floral elements, and collect family heirlooms, which the two crafted into lush still lifes that were photographed by Chris. The project took off from there, evolving into an ongoing series consisting of two separate but profoundly interconnected parts. The first is a portrait of the Mottalinis’ family life and home in the Hudson Valley—using found objects in the basement of their stone house left by former owners or foraged in the surrounding forest. The second takes place in Bangkok—where Nino spends at least one month each year—where exotic fruits, flowers, plants, and objects from his grandparents’ collection of antiquities come into view.
