KC Wilcox, a local artist stands with a couple of her casted objects.
A local Saint John artist is hoping to bring attention to Tin Can Beach through a new project.
Visual artist and sculptor KC Wilcox is collecting garbage and other objects from the beach, and casting them in rubber latex to create a permanent mold.
“It makes pretty much a duplicate of the surface and the form of the object, but also it draws information out of the object: it pulls dirt and residue and inks from it, and embeds it into the latex,” she explained in an interview.
A sneak peak of some of KC Wilcox’s work, including casts of old wood (left) and old metal cans (right).
The project, called “Shedding” is exploring our relationship to discarded objects and how they impact the environment and the waterfronts.
“As I dug into those themes, I started thinking about the environmental degradation that is present on Tin Can Beach, and since I work a lot with objects and our relationship to objects, I started collecting what was on the beach,” said Wilcox.
She collects a variety of objects, “anything from scrap metal, remains of industry, remains of ships…and a lot of waste that humans have left on the beach,” she said.
The coolest thing she says she has found so far was a piece of plastic from the old Atlantic sugar refinery, which used to be located on Tin Can Beach but was demolished in 2000.
Some of the objects KC has found at Tin Can beach that are in the process of being cast in rubber.
“I work through sculpture to kind of recall what was forgotten and bring attention to things that continue to exist longer than they were expected to,” she said.
Wilcox has been exploring spaces where nature and industry are present and contrasting each other for a number of years.
She says Tin Can Beach is the last remaining natural coastline on the south-central peninsula, and she wants people to explore their relationship with it.
“What I hope to draw attention to is the ways in which we participate in consumer culture and maybe re-thinking the afterlife of objects, and how it may impact an environment like Tin Can Beach,” she said.
Wilcox, a former NSCAD student, says she learned how to create this unique form of sculpture purely by experimentation.
Today I met local Saint John artist KC Wilcox, who is turning trash and other found items at Tin Can Beach into art! Check it out! pic.twitter.com/AIJiGMbZeP
— Danielle McCreadie (@danimccreadie) June 26, 2019
After she casts the items, she recycles them.
Her artwork will be on display at Third Shift on august 16th in uptown saint john, and will be displayed alongside other contemporary artists.
In the meantime, she will be holding open studio hours this week at 51 Canterbury street, studio 9.
