H(a)unted

H(a)unted represents the tangled nature of the emotions many feel about our environmental decline, while existing in the system that causes it. Shaped like a whale, H(a)unted in its form represents howtimes have changed before and can change again. The man-made is inarguably consuming the natural, but there is a sense of the tide turning. This work speaks to the doom-like overwhelm humans have caused the environment through the detritus of modern life, but also expresses hope that we can shift away from constant consumption, and learn to see the beauty in the broken, the unwanted and the discarded. Our culture insists that connecting to nature is such an important part of our existence andyet the system that we live within - convenience, consumption and commerce - destroys the very thing we cannot live without. I see this as one of the many paradoxes of human nature. This constant paradox, a tension between opposites, plays out in both the concepts that I explore and the materials I use. Plastic sushi fish play with the vertebrae of real ones, both scavenged from the same urban beach; stone smoothed by the eternity of nature play with stones formed from layered soft plastics. With this work, I aim to invoke contrasting feelings - repulsed and fascinated, sad and joyous - in the hope that the viewer finds the grey space in-between.