Dry Cypress Bayou
Solo Exhibition at Ibis Contemporary, New Orleans, LA
January 2023
Dry Cypress Bayou is the name of a place that no longer exists; it is one of 30 place names that NOAA removed from its maps in 2011 because coastal erosion had disintegrated the land around these former bodies of water, turning them into open water. We live in an “oil and gas state,” with a coastline whose unraveling is both caused by and exacerbated by these industries, yet we fail to shift course. These recent drawings and sculptural drawings, created with paper and inks handmade by the artist from her local ecosystem, reference the changing nature of place in Southern Louisiana.
The paper in all these works combines sugarcane, the staple chattel slavery crop, with single-use disposable plastic waste to link today’s fossil fuel extraction and plastic production to their capitalist, settler-colonist roots that have exploited people and the landscape for centuries. The inks, all created from plants and other foraged materials, including the residues of fossil fuel pollution, give added animacy to these works that bridge past and present with visions of the future ecosystems that might emerge from our culture’s detritus if the status quo remains the same.
By connecting with her foraged, hand-crafted materials in a slower, more deliberate manner, the artist offers a different way to engage with our world if we want to ensure a livable future for generations to come.