A news report filters into my mind about how difficult it is to dispose of old tires and the unsnuffable tire fires that continue to burn at tire dumps across the globe, wreaking havoc with the earth’s atmosphere. The report was also about all the new and creative ways that tires are being repurposed and recycled.
The Tire Recycling Concepts is a series of work I made to bring to life my meditations on the omnipresence and yet seeming invisibility of tires. After listening to that news report it occurred to me that I paid no mind at all to tires and hardly ever even thought about them, until that is, the inconvenience of the inevitable flat.
I wondered about what we are going to do with all our old tires? In the lab of my studio I considered what if it were possible to recycle tires into things we need more of? Like endangered species? Or clean energy generators? My aim as a painter was to answer my own questions. In the realm of my painting, I transformed tires into daisies, bees, songbirds, alligators, fish, polar bear, snails, and beavers.
I’ve also included the preparatory drawings I made for each of the Tire Recycling Concepts, alongside my paintings to provide an insight into my artistic process. Click on any image and you will be able to see both my drawing and resulting painting.
One of the luxuries I enjoy most in my role as a painter is that my ideas are not confined by the world as it is. I can paint the world any way I wish to see it.
