Awfully Pretty

As I walked on a remote, secluded beach in the Yucatan Peninsula, I came upon an endless carpet of garbage that had been washed ashore by the waves. I was struck by the chaotic assortment of man-made objects and materials and decided to look for compositions within the chaos, refraining from moving pieces or altering what I'd found. Later, as I experimented with the images, I came up with the concept for this series, using digital manipulation to create lines, textures and color schemes that somehow mask with a patina of beauty the ugliness of what I'd found. The intent is to make the viewer look past the visual and think about the way we're polluting our planet beyond repair.