Elizabeth Webb

For Paradise

Elizabeth Webb

As an adult, Elizabeth Webb discovered that her grandfather was a black man and her great-grandmother, Paradise, was a black woman. Paradise was known for her great beauty but Elizabeth could find no photographs of her. The artist’s father decided to raise his family white, and never told his children about their black heritage. For the artist’s father, the absence of blackness would protect his children from the discrimination and injustices associated with living while black in the southern United States. The artist uncovers her great-grandmother’s story by speaking with family members she never knew she had, tracing Paradise through her previously erased family lineage.