EUNICE McALLISTER

- NORTH SYDNEY ART PRIZE, 2019

"Nothing but a devil's hand (2018) The work’s title is a lyric from the song Welcome to Your Life by indie band Group Love which concerns the state of the earth, our children’s legacy. We pursue turquoise water lifestyles, creating artificial pools in our homes that mimic South Pacific lagoons, having left a trail of ruined paradises behind us. The marine ecosystem, a cyclic natural process, has been disrupted by a gyrating continent of plastic and netting in the Pacific, a plughole for every living thing. My work shows mutated life forms and fauna brought to extinction by a diet of manmade garbage. Saying that there’s hope only makes us more complacent and we continue our harmful activities, oblivious to the general state of the oceans, happy to deny what we don’t see. The background of the work is taped glass, the tape cracked from age and the effort of holding a fragile world together.