Writing An Artist Statement.

As an artist I have to write lots of artist statements. I am always so grateful for you my dear internets, because each and every artist statement I write I always treat as if I am writing to you. I generally give my artist statement a trial run here on the blog to see how it reads and more importantly to see how you react to it and to ask your opinion on my words.

Some artists statements are so convoluted and so wanky and I become so baffled by them, that I stop reading after the first sentence because they have boggled my mind. I know that in their first year at Art School, students are taught the common  language of art which ostensibly makes it easy to have a conversation across all disciplines.

But Oh My Word internet, for us common folk that are reading these statements at an exhibition,sometimes the statement is less a statement and more an incomprehensible puzzle that makes me feel quite the dullard.

But I digress. This post is about MY artist statement and mine are never ever wanky. (Ever.)

I woke up this morning around 6 and being a Saturday, I thought I would stay in bed and snooze for a bit longer. But my brain was awake and filled with words all busting with impatience and clamouring to be put onto a a page with their friends. So here we are again internet it is just you and I in the early morning, you and I and my words.

Oh and by the way, David’s first day at school went well. He didn’t go to school for his second day though and yesterday he broke up with his girlfriend again. So he is home for the moment and will most definitely be going to school for his third day because muggins here, will be bloody well driving him the 50 ks to school.

Now what were we doing? Oh that’s right Artist statements.

Here we go then, tell me what you think of this one.

Fired Up, Kim Foale

I was invited to be part of this exhibition because I am “fired up” about what I do. I am passionate about my work and if you are here today at the opening please feel free to ask me any questions that you may have and I will try very hard not to talk your ears off. I am the one with the purple hair and stripy socks. If you missed the opening and would like to talk to me, my cards are here, shoot me an email and we can have a yak.

 3.2 million items of Plastic Pollution enter the world’s oceans every day. Plastic bottle tops, helium balloon clips and cigarette lighters are common ingredients, found in this deadly plastic soup. If I think too deeply about the implications of that amount of pollution clogging up the already messy ocean, I could become paralysed with despair and inertia.

So I don’t think about the vast amount of plastic that is thrown away every day. I think about small bits of plastic that I can actually do something about. I think about bottle tops and cigarette lighters.

Disposable cigarette lighters by their very nature are designed to be thrown away. The cigarette lighters that are glued onto my canvas were removed from the stomachs of dead Laysan Albatross chicks on the Kure Atoll in Hawaii in 2009. These cigarette lighters were  floating on top of the oceans and the adult Laysan Albatross collected them in their search for food and fed them to their chicks. Eventually the Laysan Albatross chicks stomachs were filled with plastic pollution and they died from starvation.

I often use plastic pollution that has been removed from dead sea birds in my work. I painted this canvas using a cigarette lighter as a palette knife and the primary colours used are the bright colours of everyday plastics. I used the same cigarette lighters to make marks in the Southern Ice touchstones that fill the “dead albatross bowl”. The touchstones whilst beautiful are a poignant reminder that we are filling our oceans with plastic pollution. I hope that their small beauty will inspire you to think about small ways that you can help as well.

I also used plastic bottle tops and other small items found on the beach to make marks in the clay. The black eggs are a reminder that if we don’t act soon, all that will be left of our seabirds are photographs and trays of hollow eggs in dusty museum cases.

One person can make a difference.

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After I wrote this I went back and read the guidelines for my artist statement and it is supposed to be only 150 words. I have 462 words.

Bugger.

I will cull it tomorrow.

My words are tired now.

Thank you for listening.