Margaret Craig: Sea Islands

“My artwork is a contemplation on the ways we affect the plants and animals around us, and how we may be affected by them. I approach this both from a biology background as well as from artistic printmaking methodologies. My most recent interpretation involves plastic, which I repurpose and evolve into creatures which might one day populate the congregation of trash in the ocean gyres. This is not without precedent. The bacteria, ideonella sakainsis, eats plastic. With this piece, conceived during the Blue Star Contemporary Berlin Residency Program, I walked the city street collecting materials, stuff that would fall into rivers and then flow to oceans. To this I added and manipulated my own printed materials to create the evolving ‘islands’. The installation Sea Islands includes both my artist trash and household trash. The raw materials coalesce into “eddies” with the “tide”. The viewer climbs a peer on the shore to view what is collecting there. As an artist, I utilize and manipulate plastic in communicating my message. My intent is to create work that will engender thought about the relationship between humans and their surroundings.”–Margaret Craig