Environmental Art Works Created By John Dahlsen

10 days ago, I entered the biggest and the most devastating typhoon in my life and so do my father, although we enter typhoon almost every year in our hometown. The road downstairs in my house turned into a logging farm. According to the local news, 8047 trees collapsed in the city due to this typhoon, named mangosteen. The heavy rain brought by mangosteen caused the intrusion of the Pearl River water, turning the low-lying areas of the city into Venice, and some underground parking lots and tunnels were completely flooded. The affected vehicles were overwhelmed by trees or flooded, with more than 7,000. This made me deeply feel how fragile human civilization is and the most sad thing is that after the flood ebb, A mass of detritus from the industrial products in human life, not only emit a strong stench, but also have a certain degree of pollution to the environment.

Was the nature disaster destroyed our city or human are destroying the environment? One of the important causes of the greenhouse effect which exacerbate natural disasters, such as typhoon, is industrial pollution. Natural pollution caused by industrial production and natural disasters have formed a vicious circle to a certain extent. For example except the typhoon, the Black Saturday fire in Victoria in 2009 was also partly due to the greenhouse effect. The environmental tolerance is not as strong as we think. The damage caused by natural disasters to humanity is irresistible, but whether human activities are aggravating the natural destruction is noteworthy.

John Dahlsen, an Australian contemporary artist is dedicated to environmental themes. His earlier creations around 1990’s involve making Environmental Wallworks using different kind of plastic items, such as bottles, buoys, plastic tableware, straw and so on. He also uses rope, driftwood, flip-flops, jute bag, mobile phone and lighter that have all been found on the beaches of Australia. For example, 24 Pages from a sketchbook is one of the serious of them. He sorted these wastes into different colors and combined them into these 24 artworks looking like the abstract landscape paintings from a distance. He manipulates these objects so no matter how different the items might be he makes them relate to one another forming an interesting art piece.

Dahlsen want audience thinking about the deeper meaning of the work, in particular the environmental issues currently face and these works will act as a constant reminder to people about awareness. Dahlsen presenting the recycling theme in an aesthetic way, let audience bearing in mind about the environmental protection consciousness, especially while walking the beach, though to find the enjoyment inside the work on many levels and find themselves becoming identified in various ways with each of the artworks they see.

This environmental artist is also an often invited speaker at many architectural and environmental symposia around the world. He has been lecturing at many of Australia’s premier universities, and also held solo exhibitions of his incredible work at locations throughout the globe for over 20 years. His work, Thong Totems, won the prestigious ‘Wynne’ prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 2000. There are five sculpture in this work and he use found rubber thongs and stainless steel as material, to depict an aspect of the unique Australian landscape.

He was a finalist in 2003, 2004 and 2006. The Finalist work in 2003 is Blue River which share the same with the 24 Pages from a sketchbook using the plastic objects to combine a abstract landscape Wallworks . The one in 2004 is Driftwood Assemblage. The driftwood inside inside this art work is also collected from Australian beaches by Dahlsen. He is fascinated by the way they have been modified and weathered by the ocean and nature’s elements and he find this new direction, using driftwood to create art, when he collect the plastic objects on the beaches. He deeply know that the situation with ocean litter on a global level has worsened considerably and he truely hope that one day there is less litter washing up on our beaches.

The Finalist work in 2006 is Light Blue Purge Painting. The work considers cycles and recycling in re-presenting paintings of sculptures that are inherently plastic fabricator machine end waste. The use of plastic materials and their place in the evolutionary motions of recycling are important to Dahlsen in constructing these images. He explores the mechanics of how an object is put together, what place it occupies in a cycle of life; organic or man-made. Dahlsen's choice of materials has as much prominence as the end product. In addition, he won a mixed media award at the Florence Biennial of Contemporary Art in 2003, and held shows at both New York and Milan in 2004.

During 2005, he was showing his fabulous artworks in the ‘Recycled Revisited’ exhibition in New York State, and during 2006 was artist in residence, after producing a piece of public art for Jefferson City in Missouri. December 2006 saw him coming second in the quest for Australia’s richest art prize, ‘The Signature of Sydney’. During 2008 John presented his ‘Tresures of Seeds’ exhibition in both New South Wales and Canberra.He is well regarded globally, his work on display at many major public and private art collections, from Europe through the USA to Japan. He has featured in countless articles and television documentaries, all reporting with wonder on his work as a true environmental artist. In September 2010, John Dahlsen’s work was highlighted at the famous Hanmo Gallery in Beijing.

Dahlsen has never forgotten his original intentions. In the recent exhibition Echoes in 2016, he continues to present with similar materials in a different form to the audience. Unlike the Thong Totems in 2000, Multi Coloured Totems, Styrofoam Totems and Stairway Totem, are surrounded by perspex which make the works are better protected. Furthermore, he also cooperate with this idea adding the shape of perspex inside the painting in this exhibition. Similarly, he use the old themes, such as thongs, driftwood and rope to continue his work and also keeping his style separate different color of the plastic objects.

In conclusion, each of these artworks are an environmental art work created by John Dahlsen, an assemblage of various collected and sorted, found objects, mostly plastics gathered from Australian beaches. John Dahlsen committed to awake and remind audience to heighten the environmental awareness though the art. He not only gives the audience a new visual effect in the filed of art, but also provides a conversation between the environment and the art.