Courtesy of the artist, with assistance from Tatum Eyre, Todd Bowser, Susanne Baker, Twenty 2 Wallpaper, Red Canary, Kaitlin Botts, and Kris Julio
Elizabeth Alexander uses cast paper and common household materials to create sculptures and installations. She says her artwork explores the social, cultural, and psychological implications of the American ideals of domesticity, success, and safety:
Regarding home as a place that is shaped by our stories and bears witness to our secret lives, I use my own experience to explore ways we, in turn, are shaped by our homes and the activity within them.
Cast paper is a technique in which paper fiber or pulp is formed into shapes using molds. In this installation Alexander uses cast paper to create a scene of a tree crashing through a wallpapered wall. The tree is wrapped up in furniture and light fixtures that it has brought down during the crash. The floral wallpaper starts in full bloom at the top of the wall and progresses further into decay as it moves down the wall. The installation recreates the destruction caused by a big storm or natural disaster.
The title of this installation, and you did not even know enough to be sorry, is a reference to a line from Mary Oliver’s poem, From the Book of Time. It also references the “fleeting sense of safety and loss within these ‘unprecedented times.’”
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