Art News

As part of Sustainability Week, three Art students created a ‘Recycled Art Sculptures’ exhibition using recycled/re-purposed materials. We were delighted to see artworks by Molly Thornton and Marianna Pafitis (Upper Sixth), and Mila Schenk (Fifth Form).

Tree Ring Mobiles by Molly Thornton I wanted to use 100% recycled materials for my work, raising awareness about the global issue of climate change; I think it’s important that we, as artists, are mindful of the materials we use, their origin and the amount we throw away.

For this project I focused on deforestation, re-using cardboard to evoke the shape of natural ring lines in trees. Forest loss and deforestation is the cause of about 20% of global warming. Trees utilise greenhouse gases, acting as a balancing agent, especially helping to mitigate toxic greenhouse gas emissions; when forests are cut down, removed, or burnt, they become carbon sources, effectively releasing more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

By using single sheets of cardboard I was able to draw the contour lines and cut out each individual ring. I then inserted a metal wire through the centre and opened out each ring, turning them into three-dimensional mobiles. I thought about the structure as a globe, symbolic of the fact that deforestation is something that affects us all, and we can all do our part through buying more sustainably and being more mindful of our waste.

Best Before and Bagged Fruits by Marianna Pafitis Best Before is a visual representation of what out of date fruit in supermarkets becomes. Fruit waste is at a high and about one third of all food in the world gets thrown away each year. The concept is that each ring represents fruit which started off in bright vibrant colours when they were first picked, but slowly become discoloured on the shelves, therefore ending as a musky, dull greenish colour. The label ‘best before’ is advisory only – this tells us when the fruit is at its best; if it has gone past the ‘best before’ date it may start to decrease in flavour but is still perfectly edible.

Bagged Fruits: the thought of apples or other fruits being wrapped in plastic on shelves makes no sense. To convey this message I created images of various fruits in ink to depict the stupidity of plastic-wrapped products.

Plastic Wave by Mila Schenk I was working on the theme of ‘nature’ for my GCSE Art, and I discovered in my research several great artists including Olafur Elassion and Nor Tijan Firdaus. They inspired me to create a piece about the impact of humans on the environment. As I dug deeper, artists like Tony Cragg and Alejandro Durán inspired me with their art that uses plastic as the main material. This is how my work slowly took form as my ideas became clearer.

Plastic consumption and waste is a growing problem in the world. Many people don’t even realise the amount of plastic they use every day, and I wanted to bring awareness to this issue by making it more visual to show people the effect of their daily consumption and choices. With this piece I hope to encourage people to decrease their plastic waste and become more aware of the negative impact it has on our planet.