Michelle Lougee

Sanctity of Nature

Plastic horrifies and beguiles me. It is everpresent and miraculous, life saving and life threatening, essential, overused, enduring and disposable. My work, created from postconsumer plastic, examines the relationships between humans, plastic, and nature amidst irreversible environmental changes.

Committed to working with discarded materials while embodying Victorian era resourcefulness results in a labor-intensive and obsessive practice of collecting, sorting, and processing plastic. I create material confusion by making visual associations between found plastic and organic materials. Plastic objects are often transformed or embellished (with more plastic) using traditional fiber hand techniques introducing the element of time and nostalgia. Natural objects are incorporated or referenced to memorialize and reflect upon the exquisite magic of our planet. Humor, hope and loss coexist in work that is simultaneously about past, present, future, nature and a material that never goes away.

Sanctity of Nature continues my material investigation of post-consumer plastic debris, and a dialogue about the divinity of nature and the persistence of waste. Dystopian reliquaries that pair natural objects with transformed plastic in uncanny collections are displayed as altars. My work alludes to the scale of plastic pollution while questioning what our culture chooses to value and worship. The work in the exhibit: a baptismal gown, reliquaries and altars, and large-scale drawings, refer to a broader sense of divinity rather than any specific religion. In these devotional totems, carefully curated artifacts intermingle to evoke a sense of nostalgia for forgotten values. The work is at once mournful and optimistic, serving as a call to consider our stewardship of a generous planet.