Caught on Plastic
2019
Fabric, Recycled Plastic, Steel, Nets, Electronics, Air Compressor, Oil Paint
​3 x 12 x 22'

Peter Moen is expressing his fear, disgust, and joy in oil painting. The impetus for this piece was a photo of plastic garbage strewn over a beach on Henderson Island, an uninhabited Island in the Pacific Ocean. In the exhibition, there are more than 50 pieces of single-use plastic that have portraits of people that he has met painted in oil on them. Each person gave him a piece of single-use plastic and he took a photo to paint from or painted them in person. The other pieces of plastic bear some sort of ID. He hopes that the simulation of a dying animal surrounded by single-use plastic links the exhibition through horror, empathy, and disgust. Imagine our shame when we see our portrait in images of the Pacific Garbage Patch, or a cut open dead whale filled with tons of plastic and our portrait on a piece of it.

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