Artist Elizabeth Alexander: Transforming Found Objects and Domestic Spaces
Elizabeth Alexander is an interdisciplinary artist specializing in sculptures and installations made of deconstructed domestic materials. She holds degrees in sculpture from the Cranbrook Academy, MFA (2009), and Massachusetts College of Art, BFA (2004). Alexander's work has been exhibited at institutions across the country including the Museum of Art and Design, National Museum of Women in the Arts, North Carolina Museum of Art, Southeast Center for Contemporary Art, and Nasher Museum. Her work is included in collections at the Crystal Bridges Museum, the North Carolina Museum of Art, 21c Museum Hotels, and the Mint Museum. The National Museum of Women in the Arts included Alexander in the ‘Women to Watch” series focusing on paper (2020). She has recieved awards from the Harpo foundation, the Society of Arts + Crafts, Blanche E. Colman foundation, Massachusetts Cultural Council, and a Burke Prize nominee by the Museum of Arts and Design. She has been included in publications such as Hyperallergic, the Denver Post, the Boston Globe, Galerie Magazine, and the Modern Art Notes Podcast. Alexander is represented by K Contemporary (Denver, CO and Santa Fe, NM). She is Associate Professor and Sculpture Department Coordinator at Montserrat College of Art in Beverly, MA.
"Drawing from her own working-class upbringing, Elizabeth Alexander works to unpack the social, cultural, and psychological pressures within American domesticity. Raised to see the possibility in found or unwanted things, she regards the domestic environment as an extension of human ingenuity. Domestic environments additionally act as witnesses, emotional containers, status markers, and value signifiers. Home is where ideas about class, gender, taste, safety, and belonging are first learned and reinforced; sometimes through language, but often through the things we live with. Her studio practice begins with that tension between the domestic ideal and its human inhabitants. Laborious craft is the slow and steady machine behind all of Alexander's work where she spends endless hours breaking an object down and sorting the remaining and extracted parts for future reassembly. Cast paper forms and found material artifacts such as porcelain tableware, wallpaper, and other common furnishings are gathered and manipulated to probe at the many contradictions within their gentile appearance. The form of this work shifts from handheld objects to site-specific installations to photographs and works on paper, but the question remains: how do our possessions carry the values we inherit, perform, and pass on?"
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@wanderingmindstudio (mom),
norfolkironworksinc (dad)
inspiring friends: @alicia.renadette, @aprilpauza, @funlolacoker, @timothyhornsculpture, and @skyegilkerson
I Like Your Work Links:
The Symbolic Landscape- Erika b Hess at Umbria Contemporary Arts May 30- June 13, 2027
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