Angelo Bellanova: Il polmone blu

The oceans, the blue lungs of our planet, are dying. Among various other factors, pollution from microplastics is one of the most serious. In addition to abrasion from car tyres and small plastic granules in all forms of cleaning products, it is the plastic waste washed into the sea that is gradually broken down into microplastics. This robs the oceans of their ability to photosynthesise and us of our breath. The shapes developed from the artist‘s drawings as spray stencils can be seen as the artist‘s attempt to give this concept a global form, just as graffiti became a global visual language without being completely co-opted by the mechanisms of the art market. Using his stencils to transform pieces of plastic waste from the beach in Puglia into art is a symbolic act, an artistic form of upcycling. And it can be taken further! Art-loving visitors to GAP-O can collect their own piece of plastic waste from the beach and bring it to the studio for artistic upcycling, thereby removing at least one piece of plastic from the destructive process.