Elizabeth Alexander
All Things Bright And Beautiful (side 1), 2020
cast paper on 8ply matboard and wood 124" x 92" x 40"
By the time I started working, the part of the South where I live was either on fire or underwater from various extreme weather events. The existential corrosion I was processing about the state of our country was literally at my doorstep in the form of environmental carnage. Debris from these storms were collected to comingle with domestic objects in the form of hollow cast paper replicas. One half of the objects have a coating of locta paper that looked to me like a charred or rotten surface. The rest were encrusted in a skin of wallpaper flowers, as if I were bedazzling this debris. Cutouts between the print expose glimpses of the black interior through pattern upon close inspection.