Portsmouth, a talented United Kingdom-based
artist Julie Alice Chappell makes stunning miniature sculptures of insects
using circuit boards found inside unwanted electronics. She says; my art
practice comprises breaking down the pre-existing materials, reinterpreting
them and providing them a fresh form with different purpose, producing
something striking, whimsical and precious. It is all started some years back,
when she came across a large box of tiny electronic components at the
Beneficial Foundation in Portsmouth, and then recognized as the "The Craft
Bank." The center receives surplus items from numerous companies and they
pass along these "hidden treasures" to schools, community groups and
artists. The first thing that came into my mind when I looked at them was, “a
mass of tiny bodies and legs ants!” I decide to take them home to my children
and we made ants.
It was only few years later, when
she found the box again, and this time, sparked a different idea. Nevertheless;
Chappell was enrolled in a Fine Arts degree program and through it she grasped
that she can use found objects in her artwork. As part of her degree, she got
involved with environmental art.
Thus when during a workshop, she
met few upcoming artists who were making life-size robots with circuit boards
from computers. However they abandoned their project for some reasons, Chappell
took home the circuit boards because she found them so visually attractive. Though
watching a nature program on bio-diversity, she believed about the
"ants" in the cupboard and she proceeded to create various bug
sculptures using her newly found circuit boards. Through her series, called
Computer Component Bugs, the artist despairs to raise awareness of
environmental waste. The recycled bits of cultural refuse that are woven
throughout my work signify a direct encounter with the overindulgences of
modern living highlighting the dangers of planned obsolescence and e-waste in
the environment. The work displays an aesthetic beauty whilst providing a
socio-political discourse, trying to reclaim waste and the destruction of the
natural world, in the beauty of visual art.
