Set of Two Corn Servers - Patty Burns

 This show is about plastic. Its dominance in the absurd avalanche of trash around us. A riot of color, texture, and form. I’m hooked on plastics as an art supply, as material culture, as novel compounds, as permanently changed and changing, as entry into geologic and universe time.

     These pieces reflect the way I see plastic: flowing out of factories and computers and hands and every hole that ever existed, down our streets, rivers, and beaches. Like a cartoon. A nonstop
flow whose output is repetitive, recognizable, new, entropically multiplying. This flow’s surreal beauty, ubiquity, and sheer force is what I try to capture.

     I had the pleasure of living in New Orleans for 12 years, a place of incredible people and arts,
where I was in part inspired by the glittery trash winding its way around us. I currently live in
Escalante, UT, and am inspired by the flow of sandstone and the incredible light. I picked up
most of this trash in New Orleans and Escalante. I started the Bywater Museum of Unnatural
History, which has been a central part of my artistic output since 2018.

     Trash is a reflection of our beliefs and behaviors, and it seems we need corn-shaped vessels to
eat our corn from. Chomp.
Patty Burns