Bio

Elizabeth Alexander is an interdisciplinary artist specializing in sculptures and installations made from deconstructed domestic materials. Through labored processes separating decorative print from found objects she unearths elements of human behavior and hidden emotional lives that exist within the walls of our homes. She holds degrees in sculpture from the Cranbrook Academy, MFA, and Massachusetts College of Art, BFA, where she discovered the complex nature of dissecting objects of nostalgia. Alexander’s work has recently been featured in the 2019 Burke Prize Finalist exhibition at the Museum of Art and Design, and will be featured in Paper Routes, Women to Watch 2020 at the National Museum of Women in the Arts and is included in permanent collections at the Crystal Bridges Museum in Bentonville, AR and the Mint Museum in Charlotte, NC. She is currently an Associate Professor at the UNC School of the Arts.

Statement

My work examines the hidden pressures, values, and power structures taught, enacted, and reinforced within commonplace objects and spaces. Cast paper, sculptural collage, and altered objects are my methods for deconstructing domestic vignettes of traditional success and beauty. I aim to unearth the human presence within our material surroundings and explore home as a place that is shaped by our stories and bears witness to our secret lives. I look for moments where those stories seep through the cracks and reveal what’s behind the façade.

Invisible elements like suppression or trauma gain a point of entry through approachable items such as a cup or wallpaper. From a carefully curated stock of thrifted items, I collaborate with the history of objects: where it came from, who handled it before me, or decisions by the designer. I was raised to see the possibility in found or unwanted things as a means of survival and play. I did not understand this was due to financial struggle, as basic needs thus held a glint of magic. Living through a time when every moment feels on the brink of calamity I recall those coping mechanisms of fantasy and busy hands.

Long hours of unmaking and rebuilding found materials provide space to examine supposed truths within the domestic sphere. Repetitive processes become internal centering elements as I record memories and observations through labor. Carefully extracting every flower from a roll of wallpaper builds a familiarity with the patterned contents that inform its reconstruction. Time has an unusual presence where the making of a work spans many weeks of meticulous attention, yet the result often finishes in a precarious freeze frame. This work pulls at the threads of the home as a concept or symbol, and examines how ideologies contradict the realities and rituals of private space.