CREATIVE TEXTILES

(10 Artist working with recycled materials)

GUIDED BY:

MRS. RAJNI SRIVASTAVA

SUBMITTED BY:

KHUSHBOO KUMARI

DEPARTMENT OF FASHION TECHNOLOGY 2017-2021

NIFT PATNA
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to thank National Institute of Fashion Technology for giving us opportunity to
take up this assignment in the subject Creative Textiles.

Foremost, I would like to thank our subject faculty, Mrs. Rajni Srivastava, for giving her
invaluable feedback and guidance on this assignment throughout the semester. This could not
have been achieved without her support.

I acknowledge with a deep sense of gratitude, the encouragement and inspiration received
from my faculty providing me relevant information.

-Khushboo Kumari
Here are ten of the best artists who work with discards/ waste to create objects/ art
pieces/ installation by recycling or up cycling. 

1. Derek Gores

Successful artist, designer and illustrator from Florida, Derek Gores has become a master in
the art of collage. He creates his works with shredded magazine paper, labels and other
recycled materials. Gores starts by organizing his materials by color, and then creates images
from them. Gores mostly depict portraits of women, or daily life scenes inspired by the world
of fashion and design. Although his works are a mosaic of bits and pieces, they remain
strikingly fluid and graceful.

Derek Gores recycles magazines, maps, data and more in his lush portraits on canvas. The
balance of detail and playfulness in each piece reveals Gores’ knack for discovery and for
building seemingly endless puzzles into his works. Rearranging the scraps, he is able to form
a sort of surrealist image, where from afar a nearly photo-realistic image comes into focus.

He uses randomness to build an end result more interesting. There is contrast of timeless
beauty with disposable materials His colorful collages borrow clippings from recycled
magazines, maps, and labels, reassembled into bright images of figures that pull both
contemporary and vintage design styles. 

His collage art has a foundation in reality, or real photographic images of fashionable people,
buildings, and objects, his imagery also has a place in fantasy, where they fill in the gaps of
his imagination. 
2. Tim Noble and Sue Webster

Tim Noble and Sue Webster are a British artist couple who met in 1986, whilst studying fine
art in Nottingham. Their iconic “shadow sculptures” combines assemblage, light, shadow and
humor. 

They use recycled objects and rubbish, which they then light up in order to cast shadows on
the walls and surrounding ground. At first sight, the piece looks like a pile of rubbish, but
once the light is cast, the shadow of the piece reveals an incredibly detailed and realistic
image on the wall.

Throughout their careers, the artists have collected the cast offs of others, building a stockpile
of broken furniture, stepladders, crates, and other discarded goods.

The silhouettes are masterful self-portraits and a confession of the artists’ own role in the
rubbish revolution. But these projections also symbolize the elusiveness of accountability, as
our brains struggle to perceive the trash piles as the culmination of the small choices we make
every day. 

They salvaged these items for unknown future uses, refusing to acknowledge them as waste.
And as they transform these rescued items into increasingly-abstract and spatial feats of
portraiture, they give us hope that ingenuity and creative reuse can light the path to human
progress.  

  
3. Jennifer Collier 

Jennifer Collier creates incredibly detailed 3D works from paper; the subjects are normally
household objects.

Her practice involves stitching recycled papers to create delightfully detailed objects.

She recycles vintage papers (sometimes from old books) and tea bags (amongst other things)
which she bonds and waxes to create ‘fabric’. This material is then treated as if it is cloth and
stitched together to build the sculptures

Once again with Jennifer’s work, we see how recycled materials become both the media and
the inspiration. The narrative of the books and pages informs what should be created from
them.

The uniqueness of this work comes from using traditional textile techniques in a new way to
resurrect and transform paper that might otherwise be discarded.

4. Guerra de la Paz is a collective of Cuban artists founded by Alain Guerra and Neraldo de
la Paz. Based in Miami, they work from unconventional materials like recycled clothing,
from which they create very colourful sculptures. Their pieces are often interpretations of
classic artworks, and frequently convey deeply political messages. Guerra de la Paz’s art
questions modern consumer society, and the way we blindly use and discard objects that are
still in good condition, such as clothes.

This textile work is all made from unwanted clothing that is assembled into abstract color and
form based works as well as literal forms such as people and landscapes.

While form and composition are important elements of their

pieces, color takes precedence above all else. Vibrant and pow-
erful, it is the linchpin that inspires and energizes the work.
While form and composition are important elements of their
pieces, color takes precedence above all else. Vibrant and pow-
erful, it is the linchpin that inspires and energizes the work.
While form and composition are important elements of their
pieces, color takes precedence above all else. Vibrant and pow-
erful, it is the linchpin that inspires and energizes the work.
While form and composition are important elements of their
pieces, color takes precedence above all else. Vibrant and pow-
erful, it is the linchpin that inspires and energizes the work.
While form and composition are important elements of their piece, color takes precedence
above all else. Vibrant and powerful, it is the linchpin that inspire and energizes the work.

They used like colored garments and use optical mixing to form three dimensional objects.

5. Erika Iris Simmons

While form and composition are important elements of their

pieces, color takes precedence above all else. Vibrant and pow-
erful, it is the linchpin that inspires and energizes the work.
Erika Iris Simmons is a self-taught artist who focuses on using non-traditional, discarded, and
donated materials to create her artworks. She has a love for the archaic, using donated
second-hand items as her prime media.  

She specializes in using old cassette tapes to create incredibly artistic celebrity portraits,
hoping that not everything which has outlived its use goes to waste. The artist is attracted to
the idea of discovering new purposes for objects. Simmons makes portraits of people
associated with the item she chooses – without adding any paint or pigments. The recycled
artist uses materials such as sheet music, wine labels, money and, old cassette tapes.
6. Jane Perkins

The English artist, Jane Perkins in an exclusive exhibition revealed how beauty can come
from what is mistakenly considered garbage.
To raise awareness, inspire good daily habits, attract concrete sustainability initiatives and
still enjoy zero-impact works of art, made using commonly used materials.

Every picture by Jane Perkins is totally made from waste material, taking advantage of the
nuances of every single object used, without ever using paint or colors of any kind in
addition.

Humor is central to the concept of using unwanted and seemingly worthless plastic items to
reinterpret priceless pieces of classic art.

She creates art out of discarded, everything from buttons, toys and jewellery to old shells and
beads. She now predominantly works with plastic. These objects are often collected from
charity shops, car boot sales or recycling centres. She uses found objects to bring to life the
subjects of her artistry.

Once the viewer steps closer, the artwork loses its mimetic properties and becomes an
abstract arrangement of found objects. Random small objects are used. No color is added to
any of the materials – they are exactly ‘as found’.
7. Vik Muniz

Brazilian artist, Vik Muniz, is central to the recycled art movement. He is not your typical
recycling artist. He does indeed use found or unusual items to build representations of people,
places and things, but he then photographs the sculpture – which is what ends up in galleries
across the globe. His materials range from rubbish, to shredded magazines, wires, puzzle
pieces and even dust. Muniz creates large-scale pieces, whose compositions require them to
be digitally projected onto the ground from a height.

The raw materials he uses in abundance are most often recognizable objects you can find in
an every-day household. This grants his creations a strong narrative impact. The various
shapes, sizes and textures collected in every piece tell an elaborate story.

He has managed to repurpose its traditional uses beyond presenting images at face value by
treating photographs as source material, building block, and inspiration for more complex
works.

Muniz is noted for using a variety of eclectic and found materials such as chocolate, jelly,
tomato sauce, diamonds, toys, and trash to recreate his or others' original imagery.

The film, “Waste Land,” is a documentary about Muniz’s project, that took place over three
years in the world’s biggest wasteland; Jardim Gramacho in Rio de Janeiro. For this project,
Vik Muniz worked with “pickers” who collected waste for the artist. The pickers then
assembled the pieces into sculptures, which were projected onto the floor inside a warehouse.
At the end of the project, the artist sold all the photographs during an auction event, and
donated the proceeds to the pickers who participated to the project. He is known for his visual
art.

8. Nick Gentry

Nick Gentry is a London-based artist whose signature device is to recycle used floppy discs
(the ancestor of the USB drive), on which he paints astonishingly futuristic portraits. His
work is influenced by the development of consumerism, technology and cyber culture in our
society. Gentry also use used film rolls, VHS disks, and x-rays, which he skillfully integrates
into his portraits.

Drawing on recycled and obsolete technological materials as the grounds for his paintings,
London-based artist Nick Gentry creates a conversation between digital and analog processes.
Gentry construct his painting supports out of materials such as 35mm film negatives, VHS
cassettes, X-ray prints, and floppy discs. “These objects are no longer in the spotlight,” the
artist has said of floppy discs, “but by placing them there for a second it becomes easier to
comprehend the speed and extent of the changes that are taking place today.” Gentry often
incorporates elements of these materials into his figures. The magnetic circles of floppy discs,
for example, often serve as women’s eyes in his portraits.
9. HA Schult

HA Schult is known more specifically for his work with garbage. His best-known works
include the touring work, Trash People, which exhibited on all continents, and the Save The
Beach hotel, a building made of garbage.

Schult works in the tradition of Pop Art, being influenced by commercial advertising and a
critical view of consumerism, but also creates happenings. The artist describes himself as an
ardent proponent of the “new ecological consciousness” and was referred to as an “eco-art
pioneer” by the Washington Post.

10. Steven Rodrig

Steven Rodrig is an innovative artist who restructures discarded circuit boards and electronic
parts to form extraordinary arts that are organic and mechanical at the same time. Curiously
enough, his background is not arts, but was trained in structural mechanics; ultimately he
found his path through his unique PCB sculptures – using a material that is not originally
meant to be part of a sculpture.

He collects old computers, VCRs, radios, cell phones, and anything that has a PCB that could
be recycled. Others such as capacitors, transistors, diodes, help the artist to achieve the
peculiar organic look of his sculptures. The PCB adds a dimension of mechanical beauty
unlike any other.

The artist faced his own challenges in the discovery of a new type of art category, developing
new special tools and using gadgets in unconventional ways to manipulate the PCBs. The
goal of his art is to bring awareness to the fact that technology is evolving at a rapid rate, and
new generations of PCBs are produced to leave previous designs outdated. Rather than
ending up in a mound of obsolete waste destined to rot in time, the artist wants to remind us
all to recycle, showcasing beauty within the electronic parts we throw away that’s waiting to
be discovered.

Bibliography

¯ https://www.causeartist.com/incredible-artivists-using-recycled-materials-in-
their-creations/
¯ https://www.artistsnetwork.com/art-techniques/composition/15-elements-and-
principles-of-art/
¯ https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/13046/11-artists-doing-amazing-things-
recycled-materials
¯ https://theartling.com/en/artzine/recycled-art/
¯ https://interestingengineering.com/15-incredible-artworks-made-from-trash