Half Empty Bag

Artist/Creator: Kelly Wood (Artist)
Date: 1997
ID #: BG2690

Physical Description

Medium: C-print
Support: paper
Dimensions: 125 cm 106.1 cm (Object)
Object Description: Kelly Wood’s Half Empty Bag (1997) were precursors to Wood’s durational Continuous Garbage Project (1998–2003), during which the artist photographed her domestic waste production over a five-year period. The subject of garbage has been central to Wood’s photographic practice since the late nineties, serving as a metonym through which she engages topics such as environmental degradation, consumerism and the excesses of capitalism. Half Empty Bag draws attention to the ubiquitous plastic bag, a quotidian object that has become a target of environmental policies. Wood’s framing of the plastic bag removes it from its familiar domestic and consumer contexts, transforming it into an abnormal object; this sense of estrangement is heightened by the unknowability of its contents. Wood’s photographs also engage with the notion that art making is inherently an excessive undertaking, attesting to the artist’s enduring commitment to issues of environmentalism and pollution.

History

Collection: Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery Permanent Collection
Credit Line: Anonymous gift, 2005
Related Exhibitions: An Opulence of Squander

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