Every House I’ve Ever Lived In (Drawn From Memory)

Alex Morrison's Every House I've Ever Lived In (Drawn From Memory) series (1999-2002) revisits the artist's past residences through graphite drawings rendered entirely from memory. These works from the series, Johnson St. Victoria 1989 and Marin County 1991, were private commissions created on paper, unlike most of the series which was typically drawn directly on gallery walls. Rooted in Morrison's broader inquiry into West Coast architectural vernaculars and their utopian ideals, the series treats domestic space as both archive and abstraction. By recalling homes without photographic reference, Morrison explores the unstable, layered nature of memory-how personal narratives are built on both presence and erasure. Faint, overlapping lines echo how recollections shift over time, making the house itself a mnemonic device. These drawings document both place and dislocation, reflecting Morrison's early life of migration, countercultural habitation, and the evolving tension between memory, architecture, and identity.