Plastic production has increasingly become ubiquitous with our everyday existence. Its presence has overflowed into our immediate lived environments, as well as the abstract wilderness that surrounds us. It is everywhere. As the modern world has developed, our reliance on plastic has incurred our own decay, creating critical need for immediate action and alternative solutions.

Miami-based artist, Federico Uribe, has been inspired by the overwhelming amount of plastic, utilizing it as an artistic medium. Due to his proximity to the coast, Uribe has personally witnessed the increasing tons of plastic that persist in the oceans and harm aquatic ecosystems. Uribe uses these everyday items such as forks, bottles, cartons, and even flip flops to build the grand-scale project; individual gestures of an ambitious installation that is both bright and beautiful. Uribe works to carefully collect, cut, and arrange hundreds of plastic pieces to playfully visualize an underwater world, while confronting the fragility of it.

Plastic Reef, in its entirety, was previously exhibited at the 2019 Venice Biennale where it spanned 2,000 square feet. The Delaware Contemporary is excited to host this transformed immersive environment on a smaller scale. Uribe is an internationally renowned artist whose artistic practice has not only demonstrated the possibilities of unconventional materials, but champions these discarded mediums as objects of communication and agents of change, giving them a second life.

E. Avery Draper Gallery