Trapped

I am exploring the characteristics of aluminium cans and seeing how I can incorporate them into my artwork.  I have been cutting footprints from tin cans and  liked the "energy" shown by some of the scrap pieces. My attempt to show this energy was to display the pieces in netting on a canvas painted in black acrylic. I think this has worked to some degree ,particularly when viewing the actual three dimensional work.i.e. two dimensional photo does not show it at its best.

Forever 11

Viewing some of the videos of Douglas Gordon inspired me to use video as a medium to show passage of time.

In this video I have used footage I took of the movement of the sea ,to depict time, and overlayed it on a still image of a crisp packet which had been left on the beach and to a certain degree was embedded into the sand.  I have faded in the crisp packet at the start of the video and faded it out at the end  and I believe that this adds to the impression of the passage of time. The image of the crisp packet is aesthetically pleasing and the movement of the tide is  relaxing, there is however an underlying message ,how long will it take the crisp packet to degrade. 

I decided to use the recorded  natural sound of the sea and the wind as the background "music" for the video.

Bottled View

Really enjoyed creating this  acylic painting  using a roller and a sponge.I specifically chose the colours:- brown to represent the earth ,blue to represent plastic bottles and plastic film.

Forever

Collage using Ink and personally collected rubbish. Trying to create an impression of the amount of rubbish we create and to show the lack of recycling. I have been looking at the work of John Dahlsen, http://www.johndahlsen.com/ an australian environmental artist ,who uses personally collected rubbish as material for his artworks. This has inspired me to explore the characteristics of rubbish and to see if I can integrate some into my artwork. Found it tricky to get the crisp packets to adhere to the paper surface in this artwork.

Opportunity 11

I created the footage for this video when I noticed some plastic bottles floating in the river Tees. By editing the footage and changing the colour I have tried to emphasise the bottles and the shapes and patterns within the water.The background sound which I made using Garage Band and a plastic bag of rubbish adds ,in my opinion, to a feeling of uneasiness. This is the feeling I was trying to achieve,whilst at the same time producing a video that was aesthetically pleasing.

Canscape

Experimental piece to see if I could integrate cans with acrylic paint  to create an impression of the sea.  Whilst I think there is a sense of turbulence in this piece I believe I need to give more thought to the way I position the "tin footprints" in order to give an impression of the sea. I also need to think of other ways of integrating the paint and the tin cans. I have just discovered the work of Leo Fitzmaurice  http://www.northernartprize.org.uk/2011-prize/shortlist/leo-fitzmaurice-1 and believe his work will inspire me to be more creative with the use of my collected rubbish.