The Black people in Alexandria Couch’s work are strictly familiar—composed of multiple references, broken down and pieced together to reconstruct being. The use of found mediums, like recycled thread, fabric, and paper scraps, fuse imagery and materiality to create objects that exist on both physical and temporal planes. The friction that arises from abstraction mimics the reformation of marginal identities adapting to dislocation.

Dissonance is facilitated between bodies and their surroundings. Flat and agitated areas of paint are used to disrupt the space or provide areas of brief respite. Body parts are created, cut down, and reassembled to generate whole figures. Layers are scraped, cut away, and reapplied.

The figures embody a certain power in vulnerability. They confront the viewer and question their gaze on their moments of intimacy. They are captured in moments of suspension—between familiarity and routine, assimilation and evolution. Between moments of collective happiness and learning to wield together forces of antagonism with the vast, strange magic that constructs the Black identity: how we inhabit a world not built for us.