How do I create art using materials that are accessible and affordable without compromising the quality of my work?

This question was the beginning of my metamorphosed way of working. Leaving an artistic environment from GCSE, A-Level Art & Design and a BA Fine Art course at Leeds Arts University to settle into the corporate world, it became difficult to adapt my artistic creation to my new environment. I came across a big artist block when I had to adapt my art to more modest and house-friendly methods. I started collecting disregarded items around my neighbourhood. I found anything from small weights, fans, clothes hangers, metal poles, plaques, mirrors, and bottles to use as base materials for my sculptural work.

I began morphing and moulding the found objects into sculptural work, engulfing them in air dry clay. As I had no access to kilns, fired clay work like ceramics was out of business for me. Touch is a very important part of my work, allowing me to connect with my pieces, and using air dry clay allows me to continue exploring with touch. Mod Roc is an accessible material and is often used in arts and crafts projects as it is easily adaptable and malleable. I used Mod Roc to incorporate plaster into my work, a material I often find myself drawn to throughout my practice.

While working with found objects, I became conscious of my own habits of routinely discarding containers once they had fulfilled their purpose. Once the product no longer held space within the container, it would be thrown away, and soon a new container with the same content was purchased, creating a repeated routine.

The first piece of my series ‘Trash and the Artist Metamorphosis’ 2024 involved a Zum detergent bottle. I had enjoyed the lavender smell it left on my clothes, often filling the bedroom with the refreshing scent. The bottle had a side with a few bumps going down - an unusual shape I implemented in the piece. I filled the Zum bottle with water, not only to create a heavier base but also to give the bottle’s contents back, mimicking the weight at its heaviest, which provides evidence of its lifetime left. I used air dry clay to create a new ambiguous shape and plaster to conceal the bottle in a cast, unifying the piece. I continued this practice of using water filled containers to create unique forms, challenging gravity with round shapes superimposed on the top of the base.

My practice is continuously led by the exploration of texture, materiality, sound, touch, and colour. My work reflects balance, repetition, and unity through the use of geometric shapes and patterns. The collection of multi-medium sculptures embody a sense of metamorphosis through the use of containers that were destined to be discarded, giving them a second life with a new external form. Challenging their fate by also challenging mine as an artist and reinventing the way that I work to fit my new environment, I bring light to our ability to mold and morph the external world to suit our lifestyles just as much as we can adapt and change depending on what is needed from us. Adaptation is a skill developed through challenges and experiences. Reflecting on the definition of trash, this new body of work challenges our actions of disregarding something once it's fulfilled its purpose, and I want to amplify the moment when we go from needing the item to no longer holding it to a value of worth.

Every single item of plastic that you have used since the day you were born is still on this earth somewhere. Now extend this to all 8 billion of us. 8 billion lifetimes of trash and disregarded items are still holding space on this Earth. We keep objects in our house to look at or use, we decide what we bring into our environment, and this creates a private and personal bond that transcends the physical world - value. My body of work reflects on the perception of space and value. We hold an item in our space, giving it our time and allowing it to live through our actions and decisions.

When we let them go, our value no longer holds on to their existence, and they end up in the bin. We disregard what we once thanked and loved for fulfilling our functional needs in our lives. We leave behind an invisible trail of trash throughout our lives. With ‘Trash and the Artist Metamorphosis’ 2024, I give my “trash” a new life through a newly created sense of value. Reflecting on their existence, I want to embrace and nurture the daily rituals attached to the containers as small support systems in my life, such as a detergent bottle supporting my habit of having clean clothes. Whether hidden or visible, the viewer will always be looking at the otherwise disregarded item as it forms the base of all the sculptures in the collection.

Each container is filled with water, and when shifting them around, you can hear the different noises created by the water sloshing around. To me, this is the heartbeat of the piece: silent when not interacted with but alive when moved around, interacted with, and held. Water is pure, sacred, organic, and alive. Water is the most valuable resource we have, and soon, once global warming has taken its full toll as we ignore the warning signs, Water will be the new currency.

Water is equal to gold.

I find myself connecting to these pieces, sympathising with the disregarded objects. As humans, we all have an expiration date, when we are no longer deemed valuable to society or our communities. This can be through ageing, being a woman and having an “expiration date” on your looks, or when our identity or beliefs change from that of a community we once held the same beliefs in. Much like trash, humans experience being disregarded, and I want this collection to symbolise the metamorphosis of the self through the vulnerability of accepting change and growing with this change.