I am an artist and educator living in Cornwall. I create and sell bespoke prints, cards and ethical organic clothing. 

 

Since my father’s early passing in 1988 I have slowly retraced my own relationship with plastics. He was a chemist, and a salesman dealing in nurdles for over 3 decades. Plastics were an ever-present but invisible in our family home; as a source of income, as vital tools that made our lives easier and as a continual ‘modern’ habit.​

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In 2011 I began collecting plastics from beaches around the UK, France, Spain and Italy. This sparked a genuine fascination about what I would discover, and this developed into a much deeper relationship with nature. 

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My grandfather was an avid collector of match box designs throughout the Second World War and beyond, as a child I spent many hours hunting for Edwardian and Victorian glass bottles in a local river, taking delight in the varieties of glass and ceramic domestic waste. Throughout university I gathered a large assortment of used hand soaps from European passenger trains – their yellow, green, pink and blue tones intrigued me – with such unique shapes, cracks and forms all carved by interaction with human hands. 

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As human beings we are drawn to collections of objects and items, whether naturally occurring or man-made; we take pleasure in the process of discovering them and a dedication to arranging and sorting them, finding vast similarities or a beautiful individuality in a single article. 

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I am interested in the colour, tone and the qualities of microplastics. There is a wonder and vibrancy present in the plastic flotsam I find during my beach cleans which mirrors our own lives, if we take time to look and to feel it. Circles are also continual and universally found in nature so I feel they are the most poignant shape to re-represent the waste we produce that we once valued so highly. Each pattern I create is a snap shot- a window into our personal plastic usage. Every one represents a particular location, tide and day.

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The microplastics I gather mirror back to us all that every object collected could be ours. My work is here to create discussion, personal reflection and behavioural change.

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The flat lay images also highlight the ingenuity and brilliance of so many who have designed and conceived objects, products and solutions in industry since plastics were first invented in 1907 and it is this same human creativity that we will need to solve the current waste crisis we have. 

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