Tse: Plastic is versatile medium

Plastic as a medium in art has the inherent paradox of being temporal in use but permanent in substance, sculptor Shirley Tse said in a sparsely attended expose of her work Thursday afternoon at 185 Nassau St.

"Plastic is a formula for us to manipulate this base material into many different forms, creating different polymers which don't have any natural counterparts," Tse said. "Plastic started as an imitation of nature but quickly acquired a program of self-generation, a life of its own."

The presentation featured slide shows of Tse's work, including sculpture and photography. Through pieces ranging from an untitled four-foot-tall sculpture made from a stack of packaging Styrofoam to a piece titled "Bionic Pack," a four-foot-wide sculpture using computer hard drive packaging, Tse intertwines her fascination with consumerism, conservation and philosophical debate.

"Art does not exist in a vacuum," she explained, adding that "if we are a unique individual, we are unique in our choosing, but not in making something out of nothing, often drawing from a historical, cultural or personal context."

Throughout the 100-slide presentation, Tse demonstrated her passion for working with plastic and exploring the convergence of different perspectives.

In one work, titled "She's Got That Air," Tse features a blue plastic bag, filled with air, that slowly deflates throughout the course of exhibition. "The work speaks out [about] globalization, geopolitics, and the movement and transit of both people and goods," she explained.

Tse further explored the junction between nature and culture by releasing her "plastic bags" on a trip to Death Valley, Calif., she said, noting that the valley is a place seemingly untouched by man but simultaneously a hotbed for military testing and toxic dumping.

Tse focuses on the different ways in which plastic is used in our society and even decided to make her own packaging Styrofoam to embody the abstract: memory, desire, imagination and experience.

Using a router, Tse created a piece she said marked a turning point in her career. In the piece, Tse made marks on foam to record her body movements. This allowed her to merge her older work with Styrofoam and free hand gesture, she explained.

That routers come in standardized sizes "implicitly address[es] the issue of mass production and standardization of society," Tse said, explaining that "carving is a convergence of the pre-given standard size of the router bit and free hand."

Such pieces illustrate Tse's focus on the convergence of art and society, she explained.