Description
ARTIST STATEMENT
I make art about power. Who holds it, who is harmed by it, and what it costs to fight back.
For over a decade, I have worked with plastic army men and aerosol paint, arranging hundreds of small figures into larger compositions: gradients, geometric forms, words, and symbols. The materials are deliberate. Plastic army men are toys, objects designed to teach children that war is play, that soldiers are interchangeable, and violence is abstract. I use them to make that abstraction visible while implicating the viewer in it.
My process is slow and meditative. I can spend weeks placing figures one by one, performing the same motion hundreds of times. The labor matters. It mirrors the repetitive, grinding nature of the capitalist, patriarchal, and hegemonic systems I critique.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Abby Elizabeth is a contemporary mixed media painter based in New Jersey. She is currently working with miniature plastic army figurines focusing on themes of violence, war, and the relationship between the calm and chaos of the natural world. She began showing her work publicly in 2005 and has since participated in numerous group and solo shows both nationally and internationally. She is currently represented by Krause Gallery in New York, NY.
© Abby Elizabeth