Plastics
Plastic Paintings, woven plastic bags and metallic filament Approx 4' x 6', 2020
With a ban on plastic bags in effect in NYC, the detritus is still being found at previously unexplored depths of the ocean, caught in trees and sailing in the wind. These weavings, made of plastic bags, are hanging over and upon each other displaying excess as they interact creating a dynamism within the composition. If we will not cease single use plastic production, the least we can do is to re-imagine its purpose. Having a grandmother raised during WWII, I watched her fastidiously wash and reuse all bags that entered her home, and it makes it hard for me to throw them away. Weaving them into “paintings” is one way I manage a constant influx of these ecologically devastating yet ubiquitous items that persist for thousands of years although they average 12 minutes in actual use.
El Anatsui is one of the first artists who blew my mind wide open, and the powerful resonance of his work spurred me to explore the transformational quality of material. There is much to consider when we think of the hierarchies of value that “trash” ascribe to: what we physically discard and the lives, languages, rituals and culture that an aggressively dominant culture deems to be of lesser importance. Elevating that which we consider to be waste or of no consequence is an urgent and abstract question that demands from us a concrete response if we are to survive.
