One artist from the Ivory Coast, is using trash from the sea to make one-of-a-kind pieces of art. These works have not only attracted the art world in the Ivory Coast, but also attention around the world. The art is not just beautiful, but it also helps to keep beaches clean.
Beaches In Need of Cleanup
Ivorian painter Aristide Kouame 26, picks up used flip-flops among the garbage on a beach in Abidjan, Ivory Coast to use in his workshop. Source: REUTERS/Luc Gnago
Marine pollution is a major problem across the world. Oceans on every corner of the globe are being filled with trash. According to National Geographic, 80% of the pollution is coming from places on land. The most common types of marine pollution include shopping bags, bottle caps, food packaging, and drink bottles. Plastic trash can take hundreds of years to break down, which means the more this waste builds up, the bigger threat it becomes to animals and humans living in these environments. According to the United Nations, about 13 millions tons of plastic waste is dumped into the ocean each year. In Africa, the two main sources of this pollution are Ghana and Nigeria. The coastline in Western Africa is covered with trash that has washed up on shore, but one artist has found a creative way to fight this pollution on his local beach.
An Artistic, Environmentally Friendly Solution
Aristide Kouame is an artist from the Ivory Coast, who spends some of his days walking the beaches with a giant trash bag. As he walks, he digs through the waste washed up onto the shore in order to find flip-flops and other materials to make his art. Kouame, who is 26, knows that some people on the beach may think he is strange for walking around on the shore with a giant back filled with trash, but that has not stopped him from collecting materials. Once he’s collected enough flip-flops he brings them back to his studio to create the artwork. In his studio, Kouame uses scissors and other tools to cut and shape the flip-flops and also carves faces into some of the shoes. Using the left-over pieces of the shoes he makes his own paints by grinding them into different color pigments.
An artwork depicting the portraits of Nelson Mandela made by the Ivorian painter Aristide Kouame. Source: REUTERS/Luc Gnago
Once the flip-flops are cut and the shapes are created, Kouame begins to assemble his vision. His pieces range from large portraits of civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela to more abstract pieces that depict social issues such as wealth inequality, the COVID-19 pandemic, and climate change. Kouame has also been known to create large collages that are made up of 140 individual portraits, each one representing someone different. In a short amount of time, Kouame’s methods to create his works have gotten the attention of the art community in the Ivory Coast. At galleries located in the Ivory Coast, and other places around the globe, Kouame’s pieces can be found and are valued at more than $1,000.
Kouame’s process in creating his works is both cost effective and environmentally friendly. Not only is he picking up plastic and other pieces of trash from his local beaches, but he is also recycling that same material to create unique pieces of art. The plastic and trash found, including the flip-flops, is thrown into the city canals and brought out to sea and when the tides change they wind back up onto the shore. This is the trash that Kouame uses to create his beautiful works of art. “I make art from used shoes…it’s a way to give life to the objects that litter the beaches.” He sees his creations as a way to help the ocean and remove the pollution that is harming it. According to Kouame, he wants to use his artwork in order to get “people to question the issues of their environment, in order to create a better life.”
Kouame’s pieces of art are not only beautiful, but they are also environmentally friendly. They take harmful waste and pollution and turn it into thought provoking pieces.
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