ABOUT
Rye is an international artist who works with discarded plastic toys.
She considers plastic humanity’s own “natural element” and seeks to cultivate a nostalgic journey for her audiences as they get a closer look at the multilayered surfaces of her work.
She refers to her work as “contemporary taxidermy”. In hundreds of years archaeologists will find the same repeated plastic toys again and again hidden within the soil of our planet. Soldier and animal figurines will be scattered, quite effortlessly, amongst the various stones, bones and ruins of our generation.
Rye utilises these toys as her medium in the same manner in which other artists use the natural elements of the Earth in order to create animals – taxidermied from the plastic we’ve created in excess – to highlight the impact our man-made items have had on nature, our planet and our own identities.
ethos
Initially the viewer sees Rye’s pieces as a whole – a regal lion, the wise owl or the overly sized pig. Curious as to the material used – often believing it to be made from metal – they are beckoned in for closer inspection, immediately interested as to the what lies further within each piece.
Rye takes the viewer on a nostalgic journey as they slowly identify toys from their own childhood hidden within each sculpture. She carefully invites the viewer to reminisce about the touch and feel of these toys,
the laughter they incited, the play they created before ultimately being discarded as they were inevitably outgrown.
Discarded, yet not vanished.
Rye confronts her viewers with the role plastic has played in their own lives. The identity of the viewer, like that of the artist herself, is directly connected to the growing plastic problem of the planet and Rye’s pieces force the recognition of the relationship we have had with this material since childhood. It is about creating beauty out of a bittersweet acknowledgement that we too, have played a role in what will forever lie within the Earth.
availability
Certain pieces of rye’s work are available to purchase.
Please contact in order to check availability.
This is partly influenced by the time that it takes to finish a particular piece.
the artist
Rye is an American artist who first studied in Paris, before moving to Zurich and eventually making London her home in 2012.
Her studio is in East London – where she spends considerable hours diving through boxes of donated toys alongside her English Bulldog, Biscuit.
