Vanitas

 

Themes: vanitas still life artwork, environmental change, adaptation, survival, unnatural vs natural, human dominance over nature.

Description: This artwork consists of pate de verre hand cast crystal glass castings of natural shells and a cast crystal platform upon which rests discarded unnatural objects retrieved from the sea bed. The work evidences by way of these found relics, the attempts of other life forms to adapt to discarded human trash dumped into living sea habitats: a plastic container onto which shells once affixed themselves, a glass bottle encrusted with coral-like growths.

 

Date: 2011

Dimensions: Shells 11.5"x5"x3.5", 4.5x4.5x2.75, 9"x9"x3"
Platform 9"x9"x1.5, natural objects vary