ANNABELLE COLLETT SHOW ON FLEURIEU

 
W-Wheel (detail) plastic plates, lids, washing basket parts, utensils 90x90x10cms 2012  

Miss Ya Ya Makes Big Plastic
by PHILIP WHITE

Over the turbulent decades - this is a treacherous business - one of the DRINKSTER's most reliable shotgun riders has been the South Australian designer and artist, Annabelle Collett. Local fashionistas remember her Ya Ya shop in the East End; more recently she's dug in to the estuarine wilds of the Murray Mouth and the Lakes where she now lives at the foot of this Fleurieu Peninsula.

Annabelle Collett by Cynthia Jones

For years now Annabelle's been dredging junk shops and roadsides, old houses, sheds and wrecks for bits of plastic, which she sorts into potato pallets according to their colour.

Between travelling soirees this last twelvemonth she's been churning out intricate wall and ceiling hangings from this hoard of junk. It doesn't look so much like junk at Annabelle's place, however: it's forensically sorted and stored according to its type. It looks really valuable like that. And she makes it much more so.

Jewel Mask - plastic tray, utensils, beads, lids, toys 90x75x10cms 2012
 

Lately, she's been living in plastic up to her waist; it hangs from the roof above her. I have watched her industriously churn these dazzling items out for months, each piece a brilliant punch in the nose of this strange civilisation's addiction to plastic and the horrid way we leave it everywhere.

Some estimate the GreatPacific Garbage Patch to contain about 100 million tonnes of plastic, covering a part of the Pacific Ocean which could be twice the size of the USA.

Flouro Wall Fringe - plastic rackets, utensils, toys, containers 100x190x10cms 2012

As part of the government's Just Add Water Regional Centre of Culture Program in the old riverport town of Goolwa, Annabelle's mounting Plastic Fantastic, a huge exhibition from the 28^th July through to 2^nd September at the Signal Point gallery. At last count, she said she had around eighty pieces complete, but Bacchus only knows how many she'll eventually squeeze in.

Josephine - plastic coat hangar, bath mat, utensils, toys 90x42x10cms 2012

It'll be very, very trippy.

Tony Kearney, the designer & plastics' collector seen on ABCTV's The Collectors open the show at 2pm on the 28^th.

Every room needs one of these dazzlers somewhere.

Annabelle Collett in her Ya Ya suite 1983 image by Steve Hardacre, from Made In Adelaide