These artists below have been some of the most influential to my minor project, due to them having the same core values as I do, or using materials in a similar way, or they’re looking to send a message.
May Hands
May Hands has been someone who grabbed my attention with her work which draws attention to environmental issues. Her process is carried out by gathering organic materials and disused synthetic items that she obtains from her day-to-day life. “At the core of Hands’ practice is an engagement with the trends and rituals of consumer society along with the cycles of nature and the environment, such as the change of seasons.” (whitecrypt)
Through methods of placing natural and man-made things side by side, she inquires both their differences and similarities. She juxtaposes concepts including organised and disorderly, lavish and rich, or bare and barren to evoke the conflict that has been created by connecting the natural and man-made. She aims to reduce waste and consumption and does this by reprocessing, recycling, and reusing as much as she can.
Clara Chu
Clara Chu is another artist who has created attention grabbing work with her funky and playful way of reimagining everyday and mundane items. She presents colourful yet almost impractical accessories, and is able to “challenge the concept of body association with anonymous designs such as a vegetable peeler, or a spoon.” She’s been featured in multiple magazines such as Dazed and The Face, and challenges the consequences of our everlasting cycle to buy consumer goods without a need for them.
Samara Scott
Samara Scott turns consumer waste into installations, sculptures, and mixed-media wall pieces. She conveys product overload of contemporary life through using and conveying image and information. Scott has taken over walls with murals composed of smears of toothpaste and magazine clippings and covered floors with oozing forms made out of a cacophony of materials and appearing as toxic puddles. The process of consumerism in her work is delayed, as the odious stuff of swift consumption is made opulent and extraordinary.
Samara Scott
Untitled, 2015
Carpet, yoghurt, plaster, pigment
Samara Scott
Untitled, 2017
Glass, vinyl, mixed media