Elizabeth M. Webb

Lives and works in Atlanta, GA, USA

Artist statement

My creative voice exists at the nexus of multiple intersections. I am a Black woman with white presenting privilege; I contain blood memory of the Deep South and migrations North; I look to my ancestors as a portal to access a collective future. I am drawn to Stuart Hall’s analysis of how we might conceive of identity in terms of “routes” rather than “roots.” Where “roots” statically connect identity to origin, “routes” envision identity as the continuous process of coming to be. I am the great-granddaughter of Paradise, a Black woman known for her exquisite beauty, yet who never allowed her picture to be taken. The figure of Paradise—all that her name represents, the absence of her image, and her power in refusing representation—has guided my artistic practice and my approach to making. I am led by apparent absence and follow the figures that take shape through what the trees witness, what the soil remembers, and that which is left unsaid in conversation. My process begins with periods of deep research; recent projects have utilized porcelain, 16mm film, video, photography, archival text, sound, mud and printmaking as media to intimately engage with the il/legibility of landscape, memory, and the archive. My practice has also evolved alongside my own experiences navigating the complexities of the color line. I grew up in Charlottesville, Virginia in a predominantly white context. At 18, I discovered that my father’s father, whom I never met, was African-American—my father...

Artwork