TALLULAH NUNEZ
Tallulah Nunez has been buying her clothing from second-hand shops for many years and is now incorporating recycled textiles into her work as a comment on mass consumerism. Her installation piece, Remnants of Utopia, was created to begin a dialogue on the shocking situation in West Africa where tonnes of recycled clothing are washing up on beaches in Ghana.
“I’m a passionate advocate of recycling but the chronic waste of textiles in the West and the huge impact it’s having on some African countries is concerning. The clothing sourced from charity shops in the Western world are being on-sold cheaply, undermining the local textile industries and putting many people out of work. What doesn’t sell is discarded from ships off the coast, ending up on the beaches.
This year I have introduced a variety of mediums into my abstract work (ink, collage, resin sand) and because the textile issue has been prominent in my thinking it was a natural progression to introduce items of ripped clothing and textiles sourced from second-hand shops into the work. By collaging on a variety of fabrics and then painting around and over them, they are upcycled, now a painting and once again an object of desire.”