Green Piece (1998)

Artist's Statement

"Transgressions?": The exhibition consisted of eight large installations and sculptures by me with individual photographic interpretations by photographers Val Adamson and Barry Downard. Val Adamson photographed my works in appropriate outdoor and indoor environments and Barry Downard focused on making viewers more aware of detailed aspects of the works by producing enlarged computer-enhanced photographs of different sections of the sculptures.

In this exhibition I was exploring what we are carrying forward from the past and present into the new Millennium, both positively and negatively, and the works reflect global issues such as AIDs, El Nino, pollution, energy, war, poaching of large endangered mammals, computers and space travel. The base materials for the sculptures consisted of discarded industrial waste from factories that is used in the manufacture of functional fibre products. I chose this medium for its visual appeal and because plastic is a 20th Century invention which has impacted positively and negatively on our planet.

"On one day , 19 September 1998, during 35 dives in the Durban Area, scuba divers collected 300 kilograms of litter, 1 500 items, including 175 sinkers, 289 sparkplugs (often used as sinkers) and 103 fish hooks. Tons of plastic were collected by 6 000 volunteers, [as well as] polystyrene, bottles and bottle tops, cigarette lighters, a dead seal covered in oil, a dead sheep, a number of condoms and five kilograms of dagga". (Jill Gowans The Mercury 20 September 1998).