Margaret Craig’s original college degree in biology has been a major influence in both the visual and ecological context of her work as a printmaker. Her work is rooted in the symbiotic ecostructure we all precariously live in, and involves an elaborate, possibly excessive, process that (re)cycles the original post-consumer paper and plastic through several art forms and media, including acrylic, watercolor, printmaking, marbling, papermaking and sculpture.
She has been working on an ongoing print installation sculpture and performance series titled The Great Trash Reef since 2015. Its latest incarnation is the Creature from the Bleached Lagoon which references Japanese Kaiju movies and B movie monster flicks. Some lanterns read as undersea jellyfish or life. Together or apart they infest the environment. Constructed from her own recyclables, plus debris collected from the streets and beaches (preventing it from ending up in an ocean or landfill), The Great Trash Reef takes recognizable material and transforms it into something incongruously beautiful. This personalization of waste allows viewers to more directly engage with our ecological issues, especially the pollution of our oceans and waterways.
You can see more of Margaret’s work at https://margaretcraig.com/ and https://www.instagram.com/margaretacraig/