on view: Hedwige Jacobs
The Inside of envelopes
Hedwige Jacobs
On View: December 16, 2022 - February 11, 2023 I Hallway Gallery
Artist Talk: 6:30 PM, Tuesday, February 7, 2023 | ZOOM (Register here)
Photo Credit: Alex Barber
Art League Houston (ALH) is proud to present The Inside of Envelopes, an exhibition by artist Hedwige Jacobs. The Inside of Envelopes is a site-specific installation featuring drawing and animation. Jacobs’ work explores how we live and interact as a society, capturing the collective experiences of isolation, inertia, and desperation that are especially prevalent in this contemporary moment marked by the Covid pandemic and struggles for social change occurring globally.
So-called security envelopes are printed on their interiors with patterns that make it difficult to discern their contents when sealed, helping to keep items like checks or contracts more secure during their transit in the postal system. For this exhibition, the artist has created an installation of collected envelopes which densely cover the walls of the gallery. Jacobs uses these envelopes as her primary material, modifying each envelope with drawn figures, patterns, and abstract forms. She then brings them together in organic groupings on the gallery walls. The installation will also feature Jacobs’ animation where she brings individual envelopes to life, each of them hand drawn in multiple frames.
The frequency of receiving envelopes by mail is declining, and personal mail is even more rare in this digital era. Jacobs invites viewers to consider the ways in which we communicate, how that has changed over recent years, and how we would like to shape that communication in the future. Since 2020, with the combined effects of the pandemic and movements for social change globally, points of connection between individuals feel increasingly precious and simultaneously harder to maintain. The artist reflects on these ties and ponders how long physical mail will continue to be a part of these exchanges.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Artist Hedwige Jacobs
Image courtesy of the artist
Hedwige Jacobs is a Singapore-born Dutch artist. She is a Houston-based artist that currently lives and works in Jakarta, Indonesia. She holds a BFA from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague in The Netherlands and an MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. Selected shows include: Moody Center for the Arts, Houston; Anya Tish Gallery, Houston; Women & Their Work, Austin; Lawndale Art Center, Houston; Box 13 Artspace, Houston; The Amarillo Museum of Art, Amarillo; Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Hague; Philadelphia Art Alliance, Philadelphia; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington DC; Blaffer Art Museum, Houston; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; The Drawing Center, New York City; Friedman Benda, New York City; and the Red Dot Design Museum in Singapore. Her work is included in private, corporate, and museum collections.
ADDITIONAL WORKS ON VIEW
We invite you to visit Moody Center for the Arts to view Jacobs’ outdoor installation, Personal Space. The installation will be on view through August 25, 2023.