Plastic Bag Art

I was sent an email some time ago by someone suggesting a post on a plastic bag sculpture. Unfortunately I can’t locate that email and therefore am uncertain as to who to thank. I think I know who it was but I don’t want to err so to the person who did send it: Thank You.

* * * * * * * *

The pics that were sent to me by the contributor were of a large plastic bag sculpture by Pascale Marthine Tayou (1967 - ). Tayou is from Cameroon and was part of a 2011 exhibition at the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art titled Plastic Bags 2001-2010 where he used hundreds of plastic bags to make a giant teardrop. The aim was to bring attention to the overuse and waste associated with consumerism.

Here are some pics:

Here is the same sculpture on display in Rome

* * * * * * * *

Some more plastic bag art works:

There is a site – Olympia Dumpster Divers – that is dedicated to recycling plastic bags as art. Here are some examples:

Polar bear and cub made with polystyrene, sheet, chicken mesh and plastic bags, London Zoo exhibition.

Subway Sea Monster by Joshua Allen Harris. Harris animates plastic bags by placing them over the NYC subway vents.

Another inflatable by Joshua Allen Harris.

* * * * * * * *

Artist Virginia Fleck uses coloured plastic bags to create beautiful mandalas, the spiritual and ritual symbols used in Hinduism and Buddhism to represent the universe. The basic form of most mandalas is a square with four gates containing a circle with a centre point. They are also used to focus spirituality and to assist in meditation. Here are some of Fleck’s works:

* * * * * * * *

Becky Stern also makes mandalas out of recycled plastic bags. . .

* * * * * * * *

Artist Khalil Chistee creates sculptures that are imaginative and beautiful out of plastic bags”

* * * * * * * *

This enormous Plastic Bag Monster was created by the Shanghai chapter of the Roots & Shoots environmental group, an environmental program of the Jane Goodall Institute. Setup in a Shanghai park, the monster comes with the tagline: "Waste plastic bags and they'll come back to haunt you."

* * * * * * * * *