Macclesfield College student and eco-artist Maria Maw recently took her striking College art project to a recycling and waste management exhibition at Birmingham’s NEC where it sparked much interest.
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| Maria with her ‘Folly’ at Macclesfield College |
Maria, who is in her final year of a Creative Arts for Employment Foundation Degree, produced a 7 foot tall walk-in sculpture as part of her ‘Modern Human Condition’ College project. The sculpture was made from 2000 plastic bottles which were deposited in recycling bins placed around the College and was designed to be a relaxing space to reduce modern stress.
Maria always works with reclaimed materials, but instead of being ‘rubbish’ the artwork she creates is beautiful and often highly functional. She comments: ‘I like to make things that have the wow factor, such as this sculpture. I’ve called it ‘A Folly’ and it represents both meanings of the word – an eccentric and fairly useless building and a lack of good sense (for people not to recycle and re-use unwanted materials)’
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| Maria’s sculpture and artwork on display at the NEC |
At the NEC exhibition ‘A Folly’ provided an eye-catching installation on the ‘Jarshire’ stand, a company which makes small waste processing units for schools and colleges. The MOD has also since requested that Maria take her walk-in sculpture to their recycling training course in Taunton.
Maria was the only artist at the exhibition and was very pleased when all 7 of her other pieces of eye-catching ‘rubbish’ artwork were sold to one company for future display in their training centre.
Further information about Maria’s work can be seen at www.mariamaw.com. More information on art courses at Macclesfield College is available at www.macclesfield.ac.uk or by calling Student and Customer Services on 01625 410002.
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| Maria receives a cheque for her artwork |
