Sometimes, using different media to talk about current issues can create arresting outcomes. This collection of pieces is the outcome of a collaboration between myself as a creative campaigner and Glass artist, Louis Thompson. The work is part of ongoing collaboration representing the challenge of the colossal flow of plastic pollution that runs into our seas every minute of every day – currently a rubbish truckload a minute.
The process of making this first series of solid glass bottles called ‘The seven stages of degradation’ is very hands on. Each bottle was created from the inside out, using waste coloured glass shards and forming them onto molten clear glass cullet, then dipping and rolling in coloured chips and strands to represent the breakdown of plastic into smaller and smaller pieces. Colour, one of the most seductive things about glass, was chosen very carefully for each stage; very little red or yellow in the end as these would have been consumed by sea creatures by then. The glass was formed into bottle shapes thentwisted and dented to represent the distortion from the power of the oceans. There are seven disformed bottles in all, each representing the stages of photo-degeneration of plastic in the oceans. The bottles themselves get darker and darker with pollution and each have a bottle cap from my collection picked up on Kamilo beach in Hawaii.
They have now been exhibited in many places including the London Glassblowing Gallery for Synergy II 2017, The Royal Academy Summer Show 2018, Collect Open 2019, British Glass Biennale 2019 and will be at Vessel Gallery as part of group show; New British Glass from November 4th to the 21st December 2019.
Louis Thompson MA RCA is an acclaimed glass artist winning numerous awards and commissions and he has been invited to create installations for various museums and international exhibitions. His work has been exhibited extensively at galleries in the UK, Europe, Japan and the USA.
wasted talent 