Tony Rice

From Discourse 10

INTRODUCTION BY ALI FUJINO

Tony Rice of Brisbane, Australia, has for years been able to live and thrive largely by giving kite workshops. Teaching all ages, he spreads joy wherever he goes. His secret is his outgoing nature.

An artist at the age of 16, he studied painting and pottery, and in that quirky but wonderful moment of life, he discovered kites. Read more in this 2005 article from the Drachen Foundation Kite Journal: http://www.drachen.org/article/how-one-australian-manages-teaching-kitemaking-living

Tony is energetic, amiable, well spoken, and somewhat theatrical, all a great combination for a creative life. It is this combination which brought his latest project to the Foundation’s attention. Join us in this digital presentation of his “Plastic Story.”

“WASTE” CREATED BY TONY RICE

Tony Rice has been a local Brisbane, Australia artist for over 30 years. His environmental concerns have led him to make artwork from found plastic washed up from the sea.

On a regular visit to Stradbroke Island, off the coast of Queensland, Australia, Tony came across some indigenous women on Main Beach gathering seedpods to germinate. These seedpods were deposited on the beaches due to a recent storm surge. Viewing these women inspired him to help with their collection. As

he searched through the ebbs of the sand, he noticed vast amounts of plastic that had been washed up on to the sandy shores. He says, “I came across the piles of rubbish and I noticed the beautiful colors of the many washed-up cigarette lighters.”

Tony felt a need to collect them. “I started collecting and in two days, I had nearly three hundred lighters from the Main Beach alone.” These rusted, faded bits of plastic individually appeared to be litter, but to Tony they were colorful and had interesting designs. Combining his collection, Tony laid his lighters across the sand.

“By arranging these beautiful bleached-out shades of pure plastic, it created a totally different response. I came up with spectral lines forming a colorful winding snake of lighters.”

Photographing these lines in different beach locations, the relationship between the sand, sun, colors, and the “banded patterns” of the lighters began to grow. With a newfound passion for collecting plastic from beaches, Tony created life and beauty out of objects normally seen as rubbish.

“I started out with lighters but realized I had to pick up everything. I want to make artwork from this resource for many years to come.”

Using plastic as a medium emphasizes the obvious environmental issues. “I wanted to create works that had within them a message regarding this as a pollutant of our watery environment. I discovered that the great islands of plastic congregate in the oceans of the world and slowly break down into micro-particles that are ultimately eaten by fish and enter the food chain.”

With this scenario very apparent, Tony decided to create “Art Officials,” human forms made of plastic to symbolize our ultimate fate as humans with bits of plastic in our bodies.

There is a sort of transfiguration going on here in creating human forms out of our very own waste. This waste comes from the many creeks and waterways that empty into the ocean, along with rubbish from boats and beach goers, which all finds its way back on to the beach.

With this problem very apparent, Tony has replicated sea animals such as dolphins and sea turtles in an inspiring style. These structures have a skeletal appearance, and inside of the creatures is an internal digestive system made from the plastic that Tony has collected from the beach. He says that “occasionally animals can be found dead on the shorelines caught in plastic and nets, and others have rotted over time, revealing plastic embedded in their stomach.” The Stradbroke Island Research Centre has been advising Tony about which animals are under the most threat. Tony has represented these animals with his sculptures made from bamboo, cane, and plastic waste.

“Plastic Dinners” are another of Tony’s creations. Served up in a Japanese style platter, tangles of rope and plastic are presented as food. “Like the animal kingdom’s version of ‘the last supper.’”

Tony’s exhibition, appropriately named “WASTE,” contains over 300 lighters and more than 80 kilos of broken, beautiful, bleached plastic from the beaches of Moreton Bay and the Gold Coast. There is a never-ending surplus in our environment. But one local artist is exploiting this waste and crafting beauty, highlighting the obvious threat to our environment. Tony says, “I intend to spend the rest of my life collecting plastic from Moreton Bay.”