Aliza Lelah's Remnants
by Jasmin Malik Chua, Jersey City, USA on 07.24.07
Painter and photographer Aliza Lelah drew upon her own family history to create a series of 33 handstitched collage portraits of her relatives using fabric scraps gathered from the people in her life. Lelah produced "Remnants," an intimate visual family tree that juxtaposes family members who have never met, for her thesis in painting at the Savannah College of Art and Design in 2007. The collection was originally developed in paint, until Lelah discovered that it "wasn't achieving what I needed it to achieve."
"Though each ancestor came from a different time and place, I imagine my family members in the same mental landscape," she explains in an artist statement stitched in ebony thread. "My grandmother as a child stands beside my mother as an adult. A glance meant for someone in my father's family is redirected towards someone in my mother's. Reconfiguring their relationships to one another, I dwell on what has been and embrace what is." :: Aliza Lelah and :: Savannah Morning News
[via Eco-Artware]
See also: :: Art to Save the Planet, :: Tramando's Fabric Scraps Designs, and :: Maminas Fabric Dolls
