Incertitude, Bronwyn James, 2020
I am interested in how single-use plastic and poor disposal of plastic waste leads to the destruction of life that existed long before humans ever came around. This widespread problem affects ocean life immensely, and it often gets overlooked and ignored because it’s not a problem that affects our day to day lives. My artwork focuses specifically on sea turtles and their consumption of plastic bags.
Sea turtles, among many other marine creatures, often confuse plastic and other garbage with their source of food. Underwater, jellyfish and plastic bags look almost indistinguishable, and the plastic is often what gets eaten. Influenced by images by Mandy Barker, my artwork utilizes a dark background and has a glow technique to show the focal point. In my artwork I represented this by merging the images of a plastic bag and a jellyfish, and adding the outline of the two overtop. The illustration creates even more of a sense of distortion to further represent the confusion from the turtles.