Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich

Makes things and is interested in others who make things.

= Division III =

This article is part of a Climax   Div III Issue. By Carolyn Li Madeo, Contributor.

Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich's photography Division III Before We Can Speak of Flowers is a collection of stunning large-scale portraits, which are interspersed with sculptural images of colorful, wounded floral arrangements.

Before We Can Speak of Flowers will open May 1 at 7 PM in the library gallery. While working on Before We Can Speak of Flowers, Madeleine traveled, by bus, throughout the country taking intimate, epic, and poignant portraits of young Black people, many of whom are her friends and some of whom she met through acquaintances. Madeleine was inspired while working on her Division III by watching movies with the sound turned off, and a cinematic quality is undeniably present in her work.

The portraits featured in Before We Can Speak of Flowers tell stories of simultaneous beauty, strength and sadness. Madeleine ’s work captures “the day after the celebration” and tells of a personal and communal “continuum of both victory and oppression, with no final point.” Madeleine’s images of floral arrangements were inspired by a summer spent in Jamaica and include colors that are uniquely Caribbean. Madeleine explained that although these color combinations have been taught to be seen as “tacky” in the US, she invites her viewers to see them as being both visceral and evocative. Some of the floral arrangements have wounds, which were later filled with deep blue flowers, and like her portraits Madeleine ’s floral arrangements represent a sense of simultaneous celebration and mourning.

Before We Can Speak of Flowers also includes a short film, which is intended to be played on a loop. The film features a young man sitting silently and motionless as he waits for a bus to start. The film captures, as Madeleine has eloquently stated and shown throughout Before We Can Speak of Flowers, how “we live in a moment of pause in the midst of flux.”