Crit Me Installation

Eco-artivist, Rubbish artist. Mosaicist. Pioneering sustainable art, turning waste into art. Founder of Art for Trash© and payment in Kind(ness)©. Since 2017, I've pioneered sustainable art by creating works entirely from waste materials—my "trashure." I exist in tension between optimism and surrender, concerned about humanity's self-destruction yet believing in our capacity for resourceful innovation through systemic rethinking. My art embodies this hope. While I believe art should be meaningful rather than merely beautiful, in my work these qualities converge—the more beautiful my pieces, the clearer their message becomes. Each tessera I create protests our disposable culture, offering new perspectives on waste and embodying possibility. In my artistic world, rubbish gains new value, transformed from waste to wonder as the protagonist of my creations. I embrace both the ethical and material constraints of working with discarded items, often collecting materials over years. My 3D artworks frequently evolve into multi-layered narratives through staged photography. My eco-activism is a complete Gesamtkunstwerk encompassing my entire lifestyle: I'm vegan, use renewable energy, wear second-hand clothing, avoid plastic, seek local food, conserve water, maintain a vegetable and wildlife garden, practice permaculture, study evolutionary ecology and plant neurobiology, and haven't flown in four years—all part of my commitment to sustainable living. I recognize the seeming contradiction that my artworks are primarily synthetic rather than organic. However, I consider organic materials too valuable to remove from ecosystems or alter from their natural state, and that is why I try to replace all my resources with unrecyclable waste wherever possible. Ultimately, I aim to minimize environmental impact while maximizing artistic impact, pushing boundaries in mosaic and fine art, making them accessible to all by transforming shame into wonder and catalysing meaningful change.