Bouquet

My Inspiration

This piece was inspired by photographs and videos from The National Geographic website which showed plastic islands in our oceans including 'The great Pacific Rubbish Patch'. I am fascinated and abhorred by this plastic. Ironically some of these images reminded me of bouquets of flowers as the plastic conglomerated into a patch in the sea. I began to see the beauty of this plastic pollution. I studied the work of artist Viz Muniz.

Process

I collected plastics from the sea shore and salvaged plastic from our home bin. I melted, painted and cut this plastic into abstract flowers which I stuck onto a hardwood box frame. Afterwards, I thought about the waves and looked for a material to represent them. I came upon velvet. However I needed colours analogous to the flowers. Eventually I sourced hand dyed velvet. I folded it into a composition that represented the waves. After four weeks of changes I finished the piece with light blue acrylic paint and layers of resin (a plastic). I threw glitter onto the wet resin to give the iridescent effect. For me the glittering effect is indicative of the ‘glitz and glamor’ of much of 21St century plastic living.