Environmentally Conscious Art
Since 2010, I have been creating a variety of environmentally conscious art. In some cases, I created this art with pencil and paper, because that media has a minimal impact on the environment. In other cases, I used nontraditional materials as media which could not be recycled and which would have ended up in the landfill. In other cases, I created artwork to document my own impact on the environment and to hold myself more accountable for my own decisions. If you scroll down, you can see some of these environmentally conscious artworks.
For the five drawings below, I chose to work with a horizontal composition, each piece of paper being three feet long but only four inches high. Drawing inspiration from long stone relief narratives depicted in Buddhist and Hindu art in South and Southeast Asia, I drew and shaded each piece to look somewhat like carved stone, even adding cracks in places. I used overlapping to create the illusion of depth, but I used limited values to make that depth appear shallow. I also worked at keeping the animals, plants, and trash in these pieces relatively simple to give the impression of innocence, perhaps reminding viewers of images from children's coloring books.
The Oceans. 2018. 4" x 36".
The Land. 2018. 4" x 36".
Uncovering the Plastic Age. 2019. 4" x 36".
And Then Humanity Polluted the Oceans. 2019. 4" x 36".
And Then Humanity Polluted the Oceans (continued). 2019. 4" x 36".
For the pencil drawing below, I chose to work within the Surrealist tradition, developing a composition that contains believable items that are placed in a dreamlike setting. By juxtaposing a realistic fly on a box made of cracked earth, along with countless plastic bottles, smokestacks, space debris, and oil barrels, I am remarking on our own thoughtless destruction of the planet. All of the manmade items represent the waste and pollution that we are creating, pollution that will ruin what remains of the world's clean air, water, and soil. The fly represents both the end of the natural world as well as our own demise. In Portrait of a Carthusian (1446), Petrus Christus painted a carefully rendered fly at the bottom of the portrait in order to show viewers his skills with an example of trompe l'oeil; he may also have included the fly as a form of memento mori, a "reminder of death." I decided to work with that symbolic idea of a memento mori here, taking it perhaps a step further so that the fly can be seen as death itself. The hand reaching into the Surrealist world is ours, both mine as the artist and yours as the viewer. The calm and open gesture of the hand and the touch to the index finger of the fly's front legs suggest both an agreement and a resignation. By continuing our destructive behaviors, we are ushering in our own demise, and we seem to take no issue with that destruction.
What Have We Done?. Pencil. 2020. 9" x 12".
For the digital images below, I compiled photographs that I took of my trash, of the waste which I produced and which I could account for sending directly to local landfills. Over the past several years, I have reduced the quantity of goods which I consume, and I have increased the portion of those goods which I reuse, repair, repurpose, compost, and recycle. Near the end of 2014, I decided to document my trash in order to better hold myself accountable for the waste which I produced and directly sent to be buried in holes in the ground. The images below contain photographs documenting my trash over many days. The first photograph includes trash in a soft-shell bag; the rest include trash in pasta bags.
Uncovering the Plastic Age. 2019. 4" x 36".
And Then Humanity Polluted the Oceans. 2019. 4" x 36".
And Then Humanity Polluted the Oceans (continued). 2019. 4" x 36".
For the pencil drawing below, I chose to work within the Surrealist tradition, developing a composition that contains believable items that are placed in a dreamlike setting. By juxtaposing a realistic fly on a box made of cracked earth, along with countless plastic bottles, smokestacks, space debris, and oil barrels, I am remarking on our own thoughtless destruction of the planet. All of the manmade items represent the waste and pollution that we are creating, pollution that will ruin what remains of the world's clean air, water, and soil. The fly represents both the end of the natural world as well as our own demise. In Portrait of a Carthusian (1446), Petrus Christus painted a carefully rendered fly at the bottom of the portrait in order to show viewers his skills with an example of trompe l'oeil; he may also have included the fly as a form of memento mori, a "reminder of death." I decided to work with that symbolic idea of a memento mori here, taking it perhaps a step further so that the fly can be seen as death itself. The hand reaching into the Surrealist world is ours, both mine as the artist and yours as the viewer. The calm and open gesture of the hand and the touch to the index finger of the fly's front legs suggest both an agreement and a resignation. By continuing our destructive behaviors, we are ushering in our own demise, and we seem to take no issue with that destruction.
What Have We Done?. Pencil. 2020. 9" x 12".
For the digital images below, I compiled photographs that I took of my trash, of the waste which I produced and which I could account for sending directly to local landfills. Over the past several years, I have reduced the quantity of goods which I consume, and I have increased the portion of those goods which I reuse, repair, repurpose, compost, and recycle. Near the end of 2014, I decided to document my trash in order to better hold myself accountable for the waste which I produced and directly sent to be buried in holes in the ground. The images below contain photographs documenting my trash over many days. The first photograph includes trash in a soft-shell bag; the rest include trash in pasta bags.
2000 Days of trash in Pasta Bags. 2014-2020.
1830 Days (5 Years) of Trash in Pasta Bags. 2014-2020.
1200 Days of Trash in Pasta Bags. 2014-2018.
© Christopher P. Goedert
