ARTIST STATEMENT

My work focuses on visually communicating and inspiring environmental awareness, touching on issues that are of personal concern to me, particularly those that arise from in and around my home country of Barbados. The critical issues of plastic pollution in our marine environments and coral bleaching due to climate change are the main areas of focus in my artistic practice. 

Inspired by coral reefs and their diverse inhabitants, I create intricate works that explore their fragile beauty, form, structure, and texture evoking a sense of curiosity, examination, concern and awareness of their environment, particularly, with the human caused threats they face worldwide. My work strives to visually communicate, stimulate and provoke the conscience of consumers of single-use plastic disposables. 

The majority of my work incorporates found single-use plastic objects which I use to make various moulds to design and create sculptural and functional pieces. These moulds help to recover accurate form and texture of the object. Some of the plastic objects I use have been collected from beaches in Barbados, revealing its texture of scars from its life at sea. Hand-built coral structures and/or organisms can be found ‘growing’ on these moulded plastic forms, ‘consuming’ them, or ‘fused’ into a hybrid fossil (a singular mass of natural and manufactured materials).

The various series of my work aim to provoke the viewer to reconsider how we use everyday materials and to think about where they actually end up, reminding us to be environmentally responsible with our waste. In having these recognizable plastic objects reproduced into a ceramic form, I am giving it a permanence in our everyday life as opposed to a brief encounter at the time of use, reminding users that these single-use plastic objects are forever permanent and constantly accumulating at an alarming rate in the environment.