Faculty of Art

Drawing and Painting

Grace Emerson

Flowing Contamination (I Hope That You See This)

This work is a grim, abstracted prediction of what our oceans could look like in the future if we don't change our ways.

“When I think about the future, I am filled with fear and dread. Especially in regards to the future of our physical world, because of all of the damage that has been done to it at the hands of humans. The catastrophic effects of global warming and pollution are becoming increasingly more impossible to ignore, yet they are still being ignored by money hungry corporations. The specific world issues that I am focusing on with this work are The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, or Garbage Island, and the issue of oil spills. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is an expanse of garbage and microplastics filling the ocean that spans for over 300 miles. These microplastics fill the stomachs of marine wildlife such as fish and birds, and are detrimental to the habitat of plankton, which affects the entire marine ecosystem and food chain. This terrible occurrence is actually a combination of two separate garbage patches that met, The Eastern Garbage Patch and The Western Garbage Patch. The task of cleaning this up would be extremely expensive and difficult, and no country wants to take responsibility for it, as it is in the middle of the Ocean. Oil spills are another major threat to our oceans and those who inhabit them, and they are occurring constantly at both a small and large scale. With this piece, I am speculating about what our Oceans may look like in the future if we don’t change our ways. If no one with power takes responsibility for the reality of extremely polluted oceans, I am sceptical that we will see clear waters filled with colourful wildlife in our future. My intention with this piece was to make it aesthetically pleasing in terms of colour, composition, and materials, to draw people in with beauty, to bring attention to the cause I am working with. It is truly scary growing up in a world that is being disrespected and destroyed more and more by the day- this painting is my response to those feelings and my grim prediction for the future of our planet. ”