Exhibition Dates
July 5th to August 19th, 2025
Also Free Silkcreen workshop on July 5th, 2025 Saturday from 12 to 6 PM
All is welcome! All materials will be provided.
Location
New Leaf Editions, 1244 Cartwright Street, Vancouver, BC
New Leaf Editions presents “An Ocean of Plastic” by Monique Martin, on view from July 5th to August 19th, 2025.
An Ocean of Plastics
Our nascent attempts to change fate and reduce plastic currently in our environment will never keep up with what is already in the world and being added daily. The challenge is to discuss plastics to address what happened, but rather how and why it happens so we can reduce the impact. Plastics in the ocean and on land are broken down and have become smaller than the human eye can see and they are omni-present, including inside our bodies.
The evincing nature of taking action creates more action by others. Our true worth can be measured in how we help others and the planet. It is much better to understand the challenges that plastics bring to our world than to accuse. The impact of plastics is ubiquitous, perennial, never ending and a challenge for this and the next generation. Everything we see and think about is filtered and sifted through our memories and as I sifted sand on a beach collecting plastics for this project, it was heartbreaking, tragic and something inside me broke. All tragedies, at least in literature, have an ending, this plight on the environment will not end. I will never be the same after creating this work. There are solutions and I will not despair as the next time I am at a beach or walking on a city street I will pick up the plastics I see. I am too small to change the big problems but this big problem is not going to change me, I will still move forward in hope for solutions to the plastic waste.
Every sentence spoken to educate about plastics and every action taken to remove plastics from our world makes a difference. Is it possible to normalize the act of picking plastic from the beach rather than seashells?
Created 2019-2025
With funding from Canadian Ocean Literacy Coalition
Silkscreen
Ink on various transparent fabrics (acquired from second hand stores and outlets)
Glass beads, plastic beads (from second hand stores and donations)
Invisible thread (yes I know, some plastic was used to create this)
previously used fish nets
Plastic sheeting from pandemic election booths
Embroidery thread (second hand store)
Gel Medium (donated from an artist that passed away)
100 panels
215 sq meters
Studio Assistants – printing
Kelsey Ford
Madelaine Duvel-Tyler
Len Thomas
Studio Assistant – Beading
Dawn Rogal
Artist Biography
Monique Martin is an eco-conscious, internationally recognized multi-disciplinary artist from Saskatoon, Canada. With a 25-year exhibition history, she has exhibited her artwork in hundreds of significant solo, invited, and juried exhibitions worldwide. Her works are held in major collections, including the Saskatchewan Arts Board, the Royal Alberta Museum, and the University of California-Los Angeles Library. Martin’s art often incorporates significant symbols to comment on contemporary social issues. She pushes the boundaries of standard printmaking into large-scale and three-dimensional works.
Her work often uses significant symbols or comments on contemporary social issues. Monique creates bodies of work rather than individual pieces and focuses on specific concepts. She undertakes extensive research prior to creating her work, often incorporating historically significant symbols and images to express her ideas. Her works push the boundaries of standard printmaking; enormous scale printmaking, installation based printmaking and working with three dimensions in printmaking.
Artist-in-Residence positions include; Disneyland Paris, Paris, France (2013), the Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan Festival (2013), the Saskatchewan Children’s Festival (2012), Bytown Museum, Ottawa, Canada (2010), Spalding, United Kingdom (2008), Nice, France (2006), Vallauris, France (2006), Mount Vernon, USA (2004), Wynyard, Tasmania, Australia (2003) and Coaticook, QC, Canada (2001).
Artist Statement
My art is an intricate fabric woven from all the people around me, the experiences I have and the things I feel. Chapters of an artistic life are unlike chapters of a book. An art life flows forward, backward, side to side with no understanding at many times of where one chapter ends and another begins. An artistic life can be marked by a series of work beginning or ending, exhibitions opening or closing; an artistic life is fluid and constantly mocking ‘being done’ as one idea begins as another merges and builds upon the last. I never know when it is the last time I will touch upon an idea or build upon a past concept and I don’t know when the fork in the road is a medium, an idea, a residency, an exhibition or an image, and often for me it is as simple as a conversation with another person. I follow my brush, carving tools, screens, scissors and glue where they take me and I trust that the trail behind me will be an interesting one.
www.moniqueart.com
X (twitter)/instagram: @moniquesart
monique@moniqueart.com
