Plastic Purges on Paper

In my new work, I am making paintings, drawings and encaustic wax installations of sculptures that are inherently plastic fabricator machine end waste. The use of plastic materials and their place in the evolutionary motions of recycling are important to me in constructing these images.

I am exploring the mechanics of how an object is put together, what place it occupies in a cycle of life; organic or man-made. My choice of materials has as much prominence as the end product.

This work concentrates on cycles, momentum and the multiple. I paint plastic fabricator waste, - purged plastic objects. Items, which are both, recycled, as well as discarded into landfill.

I see the real need for the massive social transformations that are essential, to adequately deal with such crises as the depletion of fossil fuels and climate change. I hope this work can be a timely reminder to us all of the limited supply of these petroleum based materials, which is a direct result of our current collective global mass consumerism.

These objects that I am working with in my art, are by products of everything plastic, they are the plastic run before or after a hairbrush, juice bottle or chair is made. They represent everything and nothing. The plastic in its petroleum state has undergone millions of years of evolution to get to this stage. And then, it is discarded as a by-product of societal needs.

These new works are a collection of works on paper and are the life-affirming results of what happens when an accomplished artist steps back from the place where he's been and moves confidently, and with purpose, in another direction.

This new series of works titled the "Purge" series, began prior to Dahlsen's exhibition in New York towards the end of 2005. His time in New York once again served to have a major influence upon his work and in his words, 'consolidated my direction with this subject matter and with these new chosen mediums'.

It marks a radical change in direction for the artist, who is in essence re-inventing himself, by both the choice of mediums and the use of plastic by product which the artist has discovered.

Having been a painter for 17 years prior to his working with found and recycled objects, Dahlsen's return to this arena comes with a freshness and vitality, which compliments the brilliance in colour of the chosen subject matter, plastic purges, a manufacturing by product, most commonly found as an item of waste destined for landfill.

The continued theme of the celebration of colour and form, alongside the expressed need for an ecologically sustainable future, is clearly a major force in this dynamic new work.