Casey Stewart Art

There is no material to date that is more subversive than modern plastic. The first person to discover plastic's amazing endurance was John Hyatt in 1869 when in search of a substitute material for ivory. Plastic contributes negative impacts on many areas of life especially ocean and wildlife. As a whole, humankind uses 160,000 plastic bags every second. That estimates the consumption of 5 trillion bags this year. With just plastic bags alone we could circle the world 7 times. That's not taking into consideration all the other uses of plastic that we are abusing. ‘It takes up to 1,000 years for a plastic bag to break down. On average, a plastic shopping bag is used for just 12 minutes.’ We use these everyday items, without a thought for the repercussions. An object as simple as a plastic bag is taken for granted and thrown away, adding to the ever growing landfill or entering our precious oceans. This material is so versatile it is used in almost every industry. Its high durab...

The materials artists use contributes to the context and form of the piece. The material of the work will be conspicuous and shift how the audience will perceive it. The importance of materials is one of the most fundamental aspects of art. In the 1960s and 70s Arte Povera, an art movement made up of Italian artists, wanted to reinforce this. I believe materials affect the creative process. Arte Povera was a movement against the modernisms of art at the time, in particular the minimalistic style with clean lines and anonymous surfaces. The Arte Povera artists wanted to hit mainstream art with raw materials, displaying confrontation yet still having that transgression of elegance and primal processes. often working with industrial leftovers such as construction grade steel, unfinished wood, glass, stone, soil, rags, twigs and dirt, they accomplish their goal with the most basic materials they could find. They made art in response to the cultural times, believing that the absence of ma...

The advancement of humankind was implemented by ideas through materials. After all , the commanding material of its time set the names for the ages of humankind; The stone age, The copper age, The bronze age and The Iron age. we are currently in the Information age or the digital age. Its called this due to our access of instant knowledge that would have been difficult or impossible to find previously. I find it Interesting how we use the term ‘Information age’ suggesting no materials, in relation to the past terminology that was constructed through key components. However we have more materials now than ever before. There is a sense of contradiction in calling it the  ‘Information age’ or ‘digital age’ as  the Consumer Age would be a much better description. I believe that applying science and industry is what started to increase materialistic values which led humankind into the Information Age. The information age started in the mid 20th century, establishing the periodic s...