Aldwyth, who died on April 10 at 90, was known for her ravishing collages and intricate assemblages, but her first artworks were paintings that she showed at the Red Piano Art Gallery on Hilton Head Island, in South Carolina.<\/p>\n
With typical rigor, she hewed to strict rules. A series of paintings of watermelons set on a horizontal line explored limitless color and pattern combinations. A series of egg paintings on square canvases investigated the possibilities of what might be done within a square.<\/p>\n
But canvas, frames and paint are expensive, and Aldwyth needed to economize. In 1989, when Hurricane Hugo ravaged Charleston, she brought water and supplies to artist friends there, and began photographing the wreckage and collecting the debris. With those materials, she started to experiment with assemblages, creating containers and contraptions that were likened to Joseph Cornell<\/a>\u2019s boxes but that also owed a debt to the work of outsider artists, whose rough, handmade ethos and mysterious narratives she admired.<\/p>\n Always, her themes were historical and revisionist: She queried the history of art, of ideas, of the human species. She wanted to develop her own taxonomies.<\/p>\n She turned to collage after her sister gave her \u201cZell\u2019s Popular Encyclopedia,\u201d a two-volume reference work from 1871 with all sorts of curious and enticing entries. Aldwyth meticulously cut out the illustrations, which numbered in the thousands, and organized them into categories. Then she began to put together her own history in an enormous collage that she called \u201cThe World According to Zell.\u201d Its intricate borders, medallions and central image of what looks like a tree of life recall ancient Persian tapestries.<\/p>\n \u201cTo me, if I know what it\u2019s going to look like, I don\u2019t want to do it,\u201d she said in \u201cAldwyth: Fully Assembled,\u201d<\/a> a 2022 documentary by the filmmaker Olympia Stone. \u201cI mean, that\u2019s the whole purpose, is to see what it\u2019s going to look like, what\u2019s going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n One assemblage, \u201cEvolution of a Species,\u201d looks a bit like a hobo\u2019s pack, a collection of boxes strapped together and wrapped up in cloth and string. It opens to reveal more boxes and objects that Aldwyth called \u201cexperiments,\u201d representing the various art-making methods \u2014 lost-wax bronze casting, fired and unfired clay, photography \u2014 that she had experimented with at a residency.<\/p>\n