Kimberly Brooks on John Dahlsen b – Huffington Post
KB: There has been much ado in the states lately about banning plastic bags; cities are banning them and we’re learning to love canvas in their place. How have plastic bags factored into your environmental art?
JD: I actually started using recycled plastic bags as my primary medium in 2003. These works signalled a slight departure from my more recognisable assemblage works, in which I used plastics and other detritus collected from the Eastern seaboard.
I am with this work, apart from wishing to express obvious environmental messages, particularly interested in the brilliance of the colours and textures available to me in working with this medium.
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I’m constantly surprised to see the variations in these plastics, very much like how I am intrigued by the beach found objects I have collected over the years.
I imagine these plastic bags, which mostly have a lifespan of many years, are in fact on the verge of extinction, as it is only a matter of time before governments impose such strict deterrents to people using them that they become a thing of the past. A fitting end to what has become such a scourge to our environment on a worldwide scale.
The Irish Government imposed a 10 cent levy on the use of these bags some years ago and saw the consumption of this product decrease by approximately 90% within a year, a reduction of many billions of plastic bags per year! Once again, I am able as a contemporary visual artist, to use these recycled materials, to create artworks, which I hope express a certain beauty as well as containing their own unique environmental messages.
KB: You (and your studio) must have been overwhelmed with found materials when you return from your beach trips. Once you had collected all of this detritus, how did you begin constructing and creating your various works?
JD: I brought these plastics back to my studio to sift, sort, and colour-code for my assemblages, sculptures and installations.
As I worked with these objects, I became even more fascinated by the way they had been modified and weathered by the ocean and nature’s elements. My challenge as an artist was to take these found objects, which might on first meeting have no apparent dialogue, and to work with them until they spoke and told their story, which included those underlying environmental messages inherent in the use of this kind of medium.
