My White Trash Family by Kim Alsbrooks

“My White Trash Family,” by Kim Alsbrooks, is a mixed media series inspired by the artist’s experience class distinction in the American South. For a sort of canvas, Alsbrooks chose crushed cans, mostly beer and sweet tea, which she found one by one on the street. She then painted them in the style of 17th and 18th century American portraits, with small ovals of oil that echo the watercolor on ivory era. Decorating literal trash with images of the antebellum elite, Alsbrooks challenges ideas of social hierarchy and good breeding.