Loreen Matsushima

Recycling and Redefining Series

I returned to Oahu in 1991 after graduate school and working in LA and discovered a Hawai`i like the Pretenders’ song, “My City Was Gone.”  For me it was not Ohio, but O`ahu, “my pretty countryside had been paved down the middle…”   Along with a lot the new urban additions, one of the most alarming changes in the environment was the ubiquitous plastic used for almost every commercial product we buy.  It was alarming how much plastic was present from the mountain to the sea. Plastic became its own species that has adapted into the environment, an Ecotype.  Thus began my crusade to become more active in voicing my concerns about environmental issues in art.   I recycled these plastic bottlecaps I found in nature and incorporated the caps into Ecotype paintings. I later produced monoprints using digital images of my Ecotype paintings and manipulated each print by superimposing printed images of plastic trash, birds found dead from the consumption of plastic. This imagery is the new seascape identity.

“Why do they put water in a bottle?  The water in Hawaii is good, so all you need is a glass, open the tap, and fill your glass with water.” –My father, Joe Matsushima