Local artist and activist Kim Thomas collects plastic waste and transforms it into art — her diverse artistic practice ranges from sculpture and printmaking to video and performance-based art.
Despite the varied approaches Thomas uses, all of her works share a common theme: human consumption and its relationship to pollution. Thomas shows how discarded materials (especially single-use plastics) have become entangled in our natural environment and our daily lives.
“All of my work circles back to how single-use plastics are impacting our environment and the burdens that may carry onto future generations,” she said.
Thomas presents an exhibition, The Open Chapters of Plastic, at the Saul Alexander Gallery within the Charleston County Library (68 Calhoun St.) through the end of the month.
Thomas, an art teacher at Cane Bay High School, was born in Charleston and moved back to West Ashley after earning her master’s degree in fine art at the Memphis College of Arts in 2012. During her time in the college’s multidisciplinary and experimental program, she began using single-use plastics as her primary art material.
“I knew that I wanted to focus on plastic bags as a medium and a message within the work,” she said. “I could see what a problem they were as far as how they get entangled into the waterways and especially how that affects the Lowcountry — plus, it’s this free art material.”
During her time in graduate school, Thomas began working in installation, printmaking, video and performance-based work. The current exhibition at the library shows how all of those varied practices come together to drive home her message of environmental activism.
“We’re dealing with a quantity of plastic that really is unsustainable. If we don’t take a step to reduce that and eliminate that if possible, we’re really going to have a bigger problem than we can handle,” she told the Charleston City Paper. “And we live in such a place of beauty, especially in Charleston, that it’s such a shame. We need to take care of it much, much better than we’re currently doing.”
Forward thinking
In the exhibition, Thomas collects single-use plastic lids, straws and other trash to create monotypes — in printmaking, a technique that generally yields only one good impression from each prepared plate.
Large, hand-crocheted pieces of plastic bags and Amazon mailers cover the center of the gallery. A sculptural piece from 2018 titled “Food Thoughts” is composed of single-use plastic cereal bowls which Thomas collected from an elementary school where she worked.
A 2023 video piece titled “Kick the Ball Down the Road” was created during an artist residency in Kansas City. The performance-based work contends with passing the burden of the climate crisis to future generations.
“I found all these brown bags, and I wrapped it all up to maybe do a weaving, essentially making what’s called ‘plarn’ or plastic yarn about the size of a soccer ball. And I started to correlate it to another project I did, rolling a much larger ball of plastic around, and this idea of being on the verge in between play and burden.”
In the exhibition, Thomas displays the ball of “plarn,” three photographs from her point of view kicking it down the road and a QR code linking to a YouTube video of the performance.
Also during that residency, Thomas created a work which is best described as “land art.” Called the FOREVER project, Thomas cut the word “FOREVER” (measuring approximately 95 feet) into a field of vegetation and photographed the message from above with a drone.
“This piece ultimately distills my nervousness about climate change, akin to a SOS signal, however the ephemeral nature of the work allows Nature to do what Nature does best — gradually turn things back to earth. The goal of this installation is to ask the viewer, what do we want to preserve, or to last FOREVER? What steps are we willing to take to ensure future generations?” she wrote in an Instagram caption with a photo of the piece.
Thomas approaches the topic of climate change from many artistic angles. Ultimately, each work uniquely reflects her fear for the crisis and its consequences, her passion as an activist and educator. Her central hope is that viewers of her work will walk away reflecting on their individual power to reduce or eliminate personal use of these wasteful products.
“My big push is for people to think about their own use of these products and how they can take steps to reduce that. We can reflect on our own use and say, hey, maybe I’ll just use something else. That would be my goal.”
Thomas said she is particularly excited to bring this work to the library, a free, public space that might reach folks who are not typically engaging with this kind of visual work.
The Open Chapters of Plastic is on view daily for free until July 31.
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