After Dionne Brand (2026)
Charcoal on paper, Amazon packing paper, magnets, 26 x 39.5 in (66 x 100 cm)
After Dionne Brand is part of an ongoing series where Shirt uses Amazon packing paper as a primary material. For this work, the artist covered a large sheet of paper entirely in charcoal he saved over time, then configured and arranged Amazon packing paper on top of it, holding each piece in place with magnets on both the front and back of the surface. The work bears the artist's fingerprints resulting from handling the packing paper directly after covering the ground in charcoal. Referring to the material as “charged protective ‘filler’ paper, itself the literal excess of global infrastructure,” the title ‘After Dionne Brand’ references the poet and novelist Dionne Brand whose writing interrogates the weight of diaspora, accumulation, and connection across distance. The title also references her 2014 novel Love Enough, from an earlier work in this series The Problem was gravity the answer was gravity (2023).
Additional photos available at request
Charcoal on paper, Amazon packing paper, magnets, 26 x 39.5 in (66 x 100 cm)
After Dionne Brand is part of an ongoing series where Shirt uses Amazon packing paper as a primary material. For this work, the artist covered a large sheet of paper entirely in charcoal he saved over time, then configured and arranged Amazon packing paper on top of it, holding each piece in place with magnets on both the front and back of the surface. The work bears the artist's fingerprints resulting from handling the packing paper directly after covering the ground in charcoal. Referring to the material as “charged protective ‘filler’ paper, itself the literal excess of global infrastructure,” the title ‘After Dionne Brand’ references the poet and novelist Dionne Brand whose writing interrogates the weight of diaspora, accumulation, and connection across distance. The title also references her 2014 novel Love Enough, from an earlier work in this series The Problem was gravity the answer was gravity (2023).
Additional photos available at request