For his project DEATH TO THE LIVING, Long Live Trash , Brooklyn-based artist Duke Riley collected discarded plastic objects from New York beaches and transformed them into artefacts for an imaginary 19th-century maritime museum. Flip-flops, bottles and vapes were decorated to resemble carved ivory, or scrimshaw . “I grew up going to maritime museums and dive fisherman bars with my uncle around coastal New England. That was the aesthetic that I was exposed to,” he says. Over the past few years, concerns for the environment have become central to his work. “For most people it is almost impossible to completely avoid single-use plastic. Instead of blaming ourselves, we should be focusing on the handful of billionaires globally who have profited from this destruction and could prevent it.”
- See more at instagram.com/dukerileystudio. Duke Riley’s exhibition Tomorrow Is a Mystery will be at the Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles, 16 September-21 October
