Plastic Legacy 

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These artworks have a simple message.  “Let us reduce the use of plastics”. 

I have created a visual narrative linking the ancient with the modern through the use of materials and methods that are reflective of this social and environmental awareness – cardboard and found food packaging items are the basis for the imagery.  Charcoal with its rugged earthiness creates a shadowy, sombre mood to the preliminary drawings, thus consolidated the mood and theme for the series of collagraph and lino prints.  In the spirit of reduce and reuse works are composed of plastics from the bin and the image is embossed and also inked as many times as possible to create unique images. The embossing taken from the collagraph was worked with the earthy tones of concrete dye and graphite, the resulting images are at once simple and elegant.

 

The vessel shape which is a continuing motif through the works references the ancient relics unearthed from civilisations.  Western civilisation place great value on these objects as they have enabled archeologists and social scientists to develop theories on how different civilisations lived, the food they ate, the religious and social customs, often these pottery items were decorative and featured narrative and symbolic images associated with mythology, events or the function of the vessel. 

 

A single vessel without a background creates a sense of drama, this object is a museum piece, an ancient artefact on a special plinth to be looked at but not touched.  It has been studied and theories drawn about the people of plastic era, their rituals and customs, their economics and industry.