Evaluator Mackenzie Madison Glazewski (artist)

They say our differences divide us to the extent that we cannot engage one another, where commonalities unite us. There is one commonality that is imperative to our survival: The Earth. We should be joining under this common denominator to instill environmental success, but there has been little effort. The greatest pestilence the Earth has known is human disregard and the greatest aid the Earth can know is human acknowledgement and it is through my art practice that I seek to evoke environmental acknowledgement and change.
My art practice began in solely practicing realistic representation, but as my interests in environmental awareness increased, my artistic lens shifted. I use my learned foundational techniques from realistic representation and apply them to recycled resources to create my artwork. These techniques remain important as realistic representation is still significant towards creating recognizable subject matter. I collect materials via my own recycling habits or donations from society. With these materials, I have generated several techniques. For plastic bags, I rip the bags into shapes that create the illusion of portions of the face either by using my hands or pasting them to a surface and cutting the shape using an Exacto knife. There are many different plastics that especially make up plastic bags, so I experiment with the transparency, shadows cast through the material, and layering. The way I paste the plastic strips to paper is very similar to that of papier-mâché, painting glue onto the surface with a paintbrush and shaping the plastic over my planned form, however it remains mostly 2-dimensional. The use of these materials is always experimental which makes for exciting discoveries. For example, single-use masks are very similar to canvas and can be treated similarly. My process involves gathering masks and disinfecting them, then painting them with a layer of acrylic based medium. Afterwards, I bring the masks with me and paint in plein air on skewing the mask to the perspective of the landscape.
The foundation of these pieces generates from research and events related to current circumstances in society. It is imperative to communicate as clearly as possible with these works and address a broad audience, to allow the message to be understood. Communication platforms I involve use research statements to support my environmental claims which fuel the inspiration of my work. Recently, I have been exploring the desire for change both in influence from excessive single-use waste as result of COVID-19 and from my work as a preschool teacher, the wishful intent for a cleaner world for our future generations.
In the future, I see these pieces remaining prevalent to society. Many of the materials I work with have an extensive shelf-life and will remain dangerous to our environment if we do not readdress our waste management practices. Through my research and artistic representations, it is my goal to convey this urgency and communicate in a fashion that can connect with many individuals in our current society.