Christopher Madden

  • Environmental art – planet earth in a kitchen waste bin

    environmental contemporary art sculpture

    Environmental contemporary art – the Earth in a kitchen waste bin.

    Kitchen waste bin, digital display.    January 2017, Cornwall.

    This is an example of my work on environmental issues such as global warming and climate change. This sculpture addresses the issues of over-consumption, environmental degradation and waste. I have been creating work about the state of the natural world and the environment since the 1970s.

    From most angles (as in the image on the left, above) the bin looks like any conventional kitchen bin: however when viewed from the front (the image on the right, above) the opening in the bin is transformed into a portal to the cosmos, with the Earth suspended in the darkness of outer space.
    The inside of the bin is pitch black due to the use of extremely matt black paint, while the Earth shines as a back-lit image.

    environmental contemporary art sculpture

    The work carries the environmental message that the human race is treating the earth with contempt and that we are effectively placing the planet itself in the rubbish bin.
    The work is a development of a concept that I had in about the year 2000, when I produced several environment-themed drawings of the earth falling into a wastepaper basket. The sculptural potential of using a real rubbish bin to create an illusion of outer space is a more recent development.

    A version of this work was shown in my solo show at Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens, Cornwall in 2022 and was shortlisted for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in the same year.

    Below is a video of the work showing the dramatic optical illusion effect of the work which can only be appreciated in three dimensions of on video.

  • Contemporary art and climate change – pollution

    environmental contemporary art and climate change - pollution and breathing equipment

    Contemporary art and climate change – breathing on a polluted planet.

    Digital image. First version: 1991; this version: 2015

    A work of environmental contemporary art concerning climate change and pollution.
    This work is created in a cartoon-like style. There are several reasons for this. One is that I create quite a lot of cartoons (which have been published in newspapers such as the Guardian and magazines such as Private Eye), and another is that I think that the cartoon style is a particularly good and direct way of communicating about subjects such as the environment, global warming, pollution and the various crises that are currently afflicting our planet. One of the appeals of the cartoon art style is that it generally lacks ambiguity, so its message is clear and unmistakable, which is very important with subjects that are as important as climate change, global warming and the environmental issues.
    Other contemporary art styles are often at their best when they contain a degree of uncertainty or ambiguity about what is being said, requiring the viewer to interpret the work as they see fit. Contemporary art that puts forward a message unambiguously can often tend to come across as rather dead, didactic and hectoring, which I think the cartoon style tends to avoid.
    Also of course, cartoon art, due to its nature, can easily be reproduced in print or electronically without loss of quality (both physical quality and emotional quality), thus making it available to a much wider audience than most contemporary art – which can only be a good thing when the work tackles important subjects such as the environment and climate change.

    contemporary art, climate change, global warming, pollution
    Contemporary art and climate change.

  • Fire Circle – art in the environment

    contemporary art in the environment - fire circle

    Fire Circle – art in the environment,

    Burnt vegetation. 2003

    The results of a fire made of green wood.
    The wood at the centre of the fire has been consumed by the intense heat of the fire.
    The wood at the edges of the fire remain unburnt, forming an almost perfect ring of twigs and small branches around the ash core.
    The work invokes issues conncerning both the constructive and destructive effects of fire, and by extension of human activity.

    contemporary art in the environment - fire circle

    I’ve been creating environmental art and art based on environmental issues since the 1970s.