The Inside of Envelopes | Hedwige Jacobs

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.