Artist Simon Max Bannister, otherwise known as MAX, has transformed the National Arts Festival logo into lifesized vibrant polythene plastic sculptures.
Designed by Ireland/ Davenport and launched last year, the entwined red and blue hands can now be marvelled at in 3D form made from discarded materials.
Artist Simon Max Bannister, otherwise known as MAX, has transformed the National Arts Festival logo into lifesized vibrant polythene plastic sculptures.
Designed by Ireland/ Davenport and launched last year, the entwined red and blue hands can now be marvelled at in 3D form made from discarded materials.
Bannister’s Festival’s Hands of Creation are currently being displayed at the 1820 Settlers Monument and Steve Bantu Biko Building at the entrance to the Village Green.
They can also be seen glowing at night, lit by the LED lights inside them. Throughout the Festival, these sculptures have been moved around within these areas so that they take on a life of their own as he wants people to “see plastic in a new light [and]not write it off as pollution and rubbish.”
MAX, who is a self-taught artist with a background in graphic design, goes around exploring different places to collect littered plastic of the same colour.
He then uses heat to bind the pieces together to create the large ‘skins’ to cover the wire frames. Pollution and how people use and dispose of plastic too quickly has always been of concern to him.
Apart from being commissioned by the Festival, MAX is currently exhibiting a body of work entitled The Medium Is the Menace, at Oatlands Preparatory School next to Fiddler’s Green.
He aims to change people’s perception of plastic by showing it as the “indispensable” resource that it is but one that should not so easily be thrown away.
He focuses on microplastics and how our waste ultimately lands up in the ocean and affects the food chain. Bannister demonstrates new techniques of working with plastic and its versatility by remoulding the pieces into impressive and intriguing art works.
He marvels at plastic’s relation to and effects on people, the environment and how it is a “misunderstood material”. MAX, who is not situated anywhere specific, describes himself as “a modern nomad going wherever the plastic blows.”
