Article 49 from the Polystyrene Memorial Maritime Museum

Duke Riley combines folklore, tattoo-inspired aesthetics, and found items to articulate a highly personal artistic aesthetic as well as a personal library of symbols and meanings. Riley’s work is born from, and thus inextricably highlights, the environmental impact of plastic waste on the seashore. Riley incorporates tattoo-like markings of wildlife, including whales and fish, that gesture to maritime histories and traditions of painting and mark-making related to seafaring. These symbols also allude to the ways in which plastic waste threatens these animals’ habitats.