SoNa Chicago Contemporary Art is proud to present the exhibition, Better World, featuring the artwork of Alan Emerson Hicks.

Better World takes its title from a 1970s commercial produced by the Plastics Council of America that promised a brighter future through plastic. His work responds to this false optimism, reflecting on the environmental and cultural consequences of single-use plastic production in contemporary American society.

The artist’s practice spans sculpture, wearable art, and dimensional assemblage. The sculptures are constructed from repurposed plastics over steel armatures and are designed to resemble human figures—commenting on both form and the act of building form through assemblage. These figures suggest presence, identity, and humanity within a material culture of disposability.

Hicks’s two-dimensional works explore mass production and transformation through the use of dollar store items and goods sourced online, particularly from Chinese suppliers—materials now affected by recent U.S. tariffs. These pieces often incorporate butterflies and natural imagery as metaphors for change, fragility, and the uneasy relationship between nature and synthetic consumer goods. The work is in constant flux, evoking a sense of transformation and suspended development. These pieces fall into two distinct styles: one, a dimensional couture approach using stickers and objects layered onto boards; the other, shallowly layered compositions sealed in Envirotex resin, creating a dense, atmospheric quality.

Hicks also creates wearable dresses from plastic waste and consumer packaging, many of which have been featured in sustainable fashion shows like Trashion Revolution. These works blur the boundaries between sculpture, performance, and activism.

Through assemblage, Hicks builds form while commenting on form—referencing nature, transformation, and African American historical figures. His work is in constant evolution, much like the materials and systems it critiques. Better World is both an ironic echo of the past and a call to imagine alternative futures shaped by care, reuse, and reimagining.

Hicks has exhibited nationally and internationally, including a recent solo show at the Center on Halsted in Chicago. He works out of his studio in Bronzeville on the South Side of Chicago.

Image: Natural Selection, Alan Emerson Hicks, Found object, stickers and paint on board, 13.5"×13.5"