Nerissa Cargill Thompson explores environmental issues like climate crisis, plastic pollution, legacy, and waste through textile art using recycled materials, particularly old clothing, and mixed-media sculptures cast in the plastic packaging that we use and discard on a daily basis. She aims to make people consider the world around them and their responsibility to the environment. Her work explores juxtapositions of structure, texture, and colour, particularly where nature meets man. The concrete captures the embossed patterns, logos, codes etc., of the plastics representing the presence and actions of man and giving a weight more in-line with its legacy. The naturally inspired textures of the textiles emphasise the way our waste becomes subsumed into the environment but also how nature fights back. Although she creates larger works for gallery exhibitions, she also creates more domestic-sized and themed pieces still using recycled materials and her usual techniques of embellishing, embroidery, and casting in waste packaging. For a first visit to your event, Nerissa would show a collection of medium and small-sized wall pieces from her Coastal Dreams series along with some mixed media sculptures and a selection of her brooches made from her offcuts. Surfaces (shelves, mantels, window ledges, console tables etc.) for the small sculptures would be useful. She has a couple of free-standing grids that she can hang wall-hung work. As showing in homes, it would be good to bring at least one of her sample upholstered pieces to show how her wall art can be commissioned for upholstery. Nerissa has shown at Green Walk Open House Art & Craft trail for the past two years so understands the constraints of showing in domestic spaces.
