Toil and Trouble
Kiara Y.
Oil on canvas
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“Double, double toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble" references intense strife, similar to the experiences faced by a recycling center worker. We are currently trapped in finding a way out of climate change, but something people often fall back on to “prevent” it is recycling. However, there is a gravity of simply reusing: the items sent to these centers are physically sorted into what can actually be recycled by humans, who have to endure toiling hours and the constant screeching of scraping metal and clanking glass. The difficulty of actually running these plants are reflected in the blue haze and eerie depiction of “Toil and Trouble”. The indigo coloring of the machinery and containers all point back to the worker, who almost blends in with the rest of the facility. He is unable to separate himself from the clutter, and reverse the mistakes of the thousands of people who have chosen to believe that blindly throwing anything into a recycling bin fixes climate change. And the pile of what seems like trash is the centerpiece; the viewer’s eyes are guided to it by the various diagonals stemming from the corners of the canvas. Its sheer mass and outstanding but complicated color scheme demonstrates the amount of work needed to sort through both the pile, as well as the issue of climate change. With this piece, I convey the dreary gloom of recycling centers, and how we still have much further to go in fighting for our environment.
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Creativity is the unique ability to create something that both originated and was designed in my own head. It is an outlet and a gift to be able to express my emotion and opinion to other people so that they can experience my perspective in a visual manner.
