erased, unraveled, unreadable....
The eraze installation prompted by the trammeling of political traditions that occurred in the United States after the presidential election of 2020. The wall texts Concordances segued into the installation erazure, created during the deinstallation of the wall texts.
More recently, the rise in book banning and educational censorship concern me. The digital and stitched work I've been creating throughout 2022 and 2023 is a response to the myriad ways that important texts become unreadable.
The eraze installation prompted by the trammeling of political traditions that occurred in the United States after the presidential election of 2020. The wall texts Concordances segued into the installation erazure, created during the deinstallation of the wall texts.
More recently, the rise in book banning and educational censorship concern me. The digital and stitched work I've been creating throughout 2022 and 2023 is a response to the myriad ways that important texts become unreadable.
multiple readings, linen, perle cotton, beeswax, 24" x 19," 2023.
multiple readings 2, soluble crayon and acrylic medium on paper, 24" x 18," 2023.
unraveling, linen, perle cotton, 11" x 8," 2023.
unreadable 2, digital image, 2023.
Image sources: Glenn Youngkin, Governor, Virginia Executive Order 1, January 15, 2022 and partially erased texts from F. James Davis' Who is Black?: One Nation’s Definition and Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Women
Image sources: Glenn Youngkin, Governor, Virginia Executive Order 1, January 15, 2022 and partially erased texts from F. James Davis' Who is Black?: One Nation’s Definition and Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Women
unreadable 1, linen, image transfer, perle cotton, 22" x 10 1/2," 2023.
unreadable 3, digital image, 2023.
The wall texts installed in Riggs Gallery, Maryland Institute College of Art were recontextualizations of political speech from 2021, specifically Trump’s words spoken at the Ellipse on the morning of January 6. Trump's words formed the vertical red spine which was then crossed horizontally with a line of text derived from documents such as losing presidential candidates’ concession speeches, the article in the Constitution prescribing the counting of electoral college votes, and speeches given at peaceful protest marches, The wall texts lived a second life as they were deinstalled. As I scraped away most of words composing the central spine, along with some of the surrounding horizontal lines, a new image emerged. The large loud wall texts were transformed into something more quiet. Removing the spine created a visible divide in the concordance - making manifest the divisiveness that underlies recent American politics. |