Video by Mike Walsh

On a basic level, the plastic bag pieces are about the materials they are made of. The intention of the work is not an exploration of the ideas of waste and environmental degradation, but rather stand in contrast to that.

The bags, as it turns out, are quite beautiful in these particular presentations. And while it is never the intent of the work to be anything more, it is because the viewer finds themself taken with what turns out to be an extraordinary visual experience that they bring their own intellect to bear on the ideas that are stimulated by the use of these materials. Consider how the bags do not necessarily seem so out of place as startling as they appear hovering over the water. Perhaps we subconsciously recognize that they are actually innately connected to the natural world; another carbon molecule configured from the ancient rot. This is not the intent but the result of the work. The bags are beautiful and the artist too is caught up in thinking about it.

Something has happened. What we once thought of as blight on the land, representing the degradation of our world, is now arrestingly beautiful. How can that be? Are the bags bad or misused? Now the question is about how we live, taking our abundance for granted and refusing to accept responsibility for our smallest action which, when many of us do like wise, can result in devastating consequences.

The work itself is only about the bags being beautiful and the delight in that. ◥