Art from Trash

"De Stijl Wine". by Peter Kreet

Each year  in Hobart the local Resource Work Co-Operative Society, hold an annual exhibition of art works constructed from scrape and thrown away material.Like many pre-war and wartime children, I have always placed a high value on food and "objects" in general, there has been a personal reluctance, unlike contemporary societies, to throw away or discarded things. Unlike some cultures such as the Thai, were possession of cracked or broken nature are not viewed as the bringers of bad luck, for me they are items of possibility. This has resulted in a large collection objects which most people would call junk. This reluctance has provided me with a wide selection of material for creating art or rearranged material in an aesthetic way, much of this material I have carted from house to house over the years, to the point I have had to build a special shed to house it all.

The greatest pleasure in assembling various objects into a new visual experience, is the imaginative journey. That search for just the "right" piece" of trash. Often when working in this manner, I look for some sort of theme, the above construction [that is really what they are] "De Stijl Wine" combined a desire to use old wine corks, wine labels, and packaging from a wine cases, with old weathered timber. All these materials are directly or indirectly connected to the wine industry, and have been " rescured" by me. In this work, I have used the national colours of the Netherlands and France to add colouristic drama, while making reference to the De Stijl artistic movement that developed in Holland during the First World War. Mondrian was a member of the group in their search for expression through abstraction in form and colour. This was one of the most influential movements in early modern art, and further development of these ideas accompanied the Russian Revolution of 1917. In the Soviet Union it became known as Constructivism, attracting such internationally known figures as Melevich and El Lissitzky.

But enough of art history the important thing is the realisation of how major artistic expression can grow out of the most unlikely beginning. Another work in the same vein , "Alice's Cupboard", developed from Louis Carrol's "Alice in Wonderland" were the wardrobe has been reduced to an old found wooden door, the possibilities are endless. All of this just goes to show  a few of the possibilities of art from trash. The idea of such exhibitions is to be highly commended and most certainly has my full support. In this world of the throw away, exhibition such as this allow the general public to view the possible from that pile of junk over there.

"Alice's Cupboard" construction by Peter Kreet