Art
#climate crisis
#Duke Riley
#plastic
#scrimshaw
#sculpture
“No. 382 of the Poly S. Tyrene Memorial Maritime Museum” (2023), painted, salvaged plastic, ink, wax, 12.5 x 8 x 3.5 inches
Within the 1860s, the U.S. authorities launched kerosene as an alternative for lighting lamps. Whale oil had beforehand dominated the market however was unsustainable given the appalling number of animals killed with the intention to present energy. The nation rapidly transitioned to fossil fuels, swapping one dangerous and extractive observe for one more. Whereas whaling had its financial implications, it additionally birthed a largely nautical artwork kind often known as scrimshaw, or engravings in bone or ivory.
Artist Duke Riley is attuned to this historical past and its modern-day implications. He gathers laundry detergent jugs, flip-flops, and bottles that after held family merchandise as soon as they wash up close to seashores and carves incisive allegories and ornamentation into their surfaces. Painted in a heat, grainy beige, the scavenged waste mimics the whale bones conventional to scrimshaw whereas the artist’s signature wit emerges by the up to date narratives of oil barons or marine creatures carrying human trash.
“No. 363 of the Poly S. Tyrene Memorial Maritime Museum” (2023), painted, salvaged plastic, ink, wax, 2.5 x 4 x .25 inches
Having grown up in New England, Riley frequented maritime museums together with his household as a baby. These experiences fashioned his “early concepts of what artwork was,” and the marine, people artwork aesthetic emerged early in his observe—it’s additionally unsurprising that in the present day, Riley continuously works from a ship docked close to Rhode Island. As issues with waste and plastic air pollution grew to become extra apparent throughout his visits to the ocean, he noticed a chance to develop his scrimshaw works. “I used to be strolling down the seaside at some point, and I discovered a chunk of plastic that I assumed was a bone and picked it up. It turned out to be a deck brush deal with for scrubbing a ship deck,” he tells Colossal.
This encounter prompted what’s now a rising sequence of engraved sculptures, a lot of which comprise the Poly S. Tyrene Memorial Maritime Museum. Diverging from the cheerful, shiny colours of packaging, Riley distorts the containers designed to advertise unchecked consumption on the expense of the setting. “I’ve all the time used plenty of discovered supplies,” he shares. “For me, it’s about taking a discovered materials or one thing that’s discarded or trash and making an attempt to remodel it in a approach that it’s nearly not recognizable.”
“Echelon of Uncertainty (Unhealthy Guys)” (2022), salvaged painted plastic in wooden and glass case, 18 x 51 x 6 inches
Collectively, the works place plastic waste as relics of our time with the potential to outlast humanity. “Whenever you go to a maritime museum, and also you see these totally different scrimshaw portraits on whale tooth, oftentimes, they painting the folks that benefited most from the whale oil trade and which might be most chargeable for wiping two species of whales utterly off the planet,” Riley says. He attracts on this custom, too, carving stylized renditions of Exxon chairman John Kenneth Jamieson or Arnold Schwartz, who based Paragon Oil which later offered to Texaco, into the laborious surfaces.
Whether or not depicting a hungover couple or a magnate plummeting into the ocean, Riley strives to make use of satire as a technique to make the results of air pollution and the local weather disaster extra accessible. “Utilizing humor generally is a neater technique to interact folks in issues which might be too massive to wrap your head round. When speaking about any form of troublesome topic, it’s quite a bit simpler to (use humor to) discuss one thing that’s painful or difficult and to succeed in folks and never really feel such as you’re preaching,” he says.
Riley is at the moment working towards an upcoming present in Los Angeles and on a undertaking centered round quick style. You’ll be able to comply with updates and see extra of his scrimshaw sculptures on Instagram.
Element of “Echelon of Uncertainty (Unhealthy Guys)” (2022), salvaged painted plastic in wooden and glass case, 18 x 51 x 6 inches
“No. 108 of the Poly S. Tyrene Memorial Maritime Museum” (2020), painted, salvaged plastic, ink, wax, 12.5 x 4.75 x 2.25 inches
“No. 367 of the Poly S. Tyrene Memorial Maritime Museum” (2023), painted, salvaged plastic, ink, wax, 2.5 x 4 x .25”.
“No. 66-P of the Poly S. Tyrene Memorial Maritime Museum” (2019), painted, salvaged plastic, ink, wax, 12.75 x 7.5 x 3.5 inches
“No. 26 of the Poly S. Tyrene Memorial Maritime Museum” (2020), painted, salvaged plastic, ink, wax, 12.25 x 7.25 x 3.5 inches
“No. 365 of the Poly S. Tyrene Memorial Maritime Museum” (2023), painted, salvaged plastic, ink, wax, 2.5 x 4 x .25 inches
#climate crisis
#Duke Riley
#plastic
#scrimshaw
#sculpture
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