Robert Haines won the competition in 2016 for his intricate work Pegasus. Image: Supplied.
Working with recyclable materials is not only green and cheap – it can also be a powerful artistic statement.
Lin Evola-Smidt’s angel statues are made from melted down guns, which she convinced Los Angeles residents to surrender when gun violence ravaged the area in the early 1990s. One of her larger works, The Renaissance Peace Angel, is now located at Ground Zero, a powerful statement in the face of violence.
Closer to home, Brisbane-based artists Alfredo and Isabel Aquilizan are known for creating large sculptural and installation works entirely from used materials that reflect memories and personal stories of previous owners.
Artists use recycled materials to reshape and re-interpret what society discards, and often find creative inspiration in the ‘rubbish’ of others.
Holly Pepper pictured with her work Thorn in the Reef.
As an innovative way to promote recycling, creativity and waste minimisation, Brisbane City Council runs the annual Recycling Art Competition (RAC). To celebrate the fifth year of the competition, an increased prize pool of $5,000 is up for grabs.
- 1st Prize – $2500
- 2nd Prize – $1500
- 3rd Prize – $1000
Expressions of interest close 30 January 2017
Bec Peart, who won the RAC competition in 2015 for the work Octopus’s Garden made in collaboration with Martin Pedder, said the competition encourages community engagement and reaches a broader public who doesn’t often go to art galleries.
‘Because it is recycled art there is a different level. People can recognise things in the work, they can recognise that there’s an old vacuum cleaner or old blankets. That makes a connection for anybody at any age. I’ve seen kids sit there and go, “Oh, it’s got that in it!” It’s really important to bring that [awareness] back again because it makes people think about recycling.’
Scott Maxwell with his work Night Clubbing Fan Club. Image: supplied.
The broad reach of the competition also offers a different benefit for the artists involved. In Peart’s experience, the competition has helped her access a new audience and has even inspired a continuing project in the form of a children’s book about recycling.
‘Being affiliated with the Council obviously gives the competition a very broad platform, especially through social media and that sort of thing – it gets it out there that little bit further. After all, that’s the hardest part of being an artist.’
For those interested in finding inspiration among the refuse and going in the running for the RAC, there are a few things you should first know about the competition and what it’s like to work with recycled materials.
About the RAC
The competition is currently open and Council is calling for expressions of interest from artists. The closing date is 30 January 2017.
View call out for interested artists here
The Council will then select ten artists who will have the opportunity to create a piece of artwork from items found at Brisbane tip shops and other second-hand outlets. A $100 voucher will be provided to each artist to buy items at Council’s tip shops (must be used only for materials for competition). Additional funding to the value of $200 will also be available to each artist to cover the cost of other materials. The final artworks will be exhibited at The Judith Wright Centre for Contemporary Arts and winners will be selected from community voting.
Peart advised artists to avoid ‘too precise a plan’ when thinking about the sculpture they want to create.
‘The way the competition works is that you can’t actually go looking for the pieces you want to use until the competition officially starts. And the nature of recycled items is the hunt, part of it is about what you can find. My advice is to go in with maybe some loose ideas, but in the end you have to just wait for the right piece to talk to you and jump out at you and the inspiration flows from there.’
Photo of Octopus’s Garden by Bec Peart and Martin Pedder.
For Octopus’s Garden, Peart said she and Pedder had gone into the competition with the loose idea of creating an octopus. ‘The two things we found was an old TV cabinet, which we thought could be the trunk that it sits on. We rebuilt the TV cabinet to become a trunk instead and then we found a stack of chairs that were made out of wrought iron. We looked at these wrought iron shapes and we both went, “arms!” You do need that very open imagination. You just start with that and see where the rest flows.
For more information about the competition visit www.brisbane.qld.gov.au and search ‘recycling art’.
