A north Norfolk artist has created a sculpture made almost entirely from single-use plastics, as a way of encouraging people to look at their household waste in a new way.
Entitled Where is Paradise? The Alchemy of Perception, the artwork, which features a seated, child figure with wings made from plastic cartons and fruit netting, was dreamed up by Hannah Hardy, who lives at Gresham, near Cromer.
The former Cromer High School student, who trained as a sculptor at Wimbledon College of Art, worked on a number of public art schemes in the UK before spending nine years living and working in France, where she ran an art gallery with her mother – also a sculptor – and hosted community art workshops for adults and children.
After returning to north Norfolk in 2005, she set up her own holistic therapy clinic and now juggles looking after three-year-old twins Sebastian and Citrine and older daughters Tatiana, 11, and Bebel, 13, with seeing clients and producing art in her home studio.
As well as exhibiting work at a number of Norfolk galleries and taking part in the Norwich Go Go Hare trail, Ms Hardy has, for the past three years, had an annual show at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, where her paintings of children and animals have delighted patients and visitors alike.
Her household waste sculpture, which also includes bubble wrap, a plastic storage box and building bricks made from bottles stuffed with discarded plastic, will be exhibited at the Forum, Norwich, from April 24 as part of an annual spring show, with people viewing the work invited to write their ideas of paradise on a paper feather, which will be attached to the wings of the sculpture.
'The inspiration behind it was the idea of alchemy and transformation and how we can take something old and worthless and turn it into something beautiful,' Ms Hardy explained.
'With the way things are in the world and the pressures of social media, I think people are feeling quite disempowered; they are looking for an ideal that perhaps doesn't exist, so this was about looking inside ourselves and finding a sense of inner peace and happiness.'
Hannah Hardy's sculpture will be on show at the Forum, Norwich, from April 24-28 as part of the annual Spring Art Show, featuring work by 50 Norfolk artists.
For more information, visit www.hannahhardyart.com
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