The Enchanting Microplastics
Visaya Hoffie

Gallery 4
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It has been recently discovered that microplastics have found their way into human blood. We breathe and ingest them – the world around us has entered us. We have become a microcosm of the little planet on which we have wrought so much havoc. In The Enchanting Microplastics, Visaya Hoffie utilises 'plastic' as a signifier for popular culture – deploying a wealth of imagery, media and techniques to convey the way we ingest and regurgitate culture in contemporary life.

For her cast of characters, Hoffie cites a litany of every day subject matter as sources – cars, animals and pets, her friends – among references to literature, popular culture, fashion brands such as Bapesta, television, including The Sopranos, Nathan For You, and children’s books including Penny Pollard, by Robin Klein: “a hot mess of data that’s part-and-parcel of what I’m looking at or thinking about right now.” In her paintings, these characters are rendered in a melange of airbrush, oil, acrylics, ink, crayons, and pencils “to respond to the way forms and surfaces emerge and images coalesce”; while her ceramic sculptural works feature characters influenced by both real and imagined personae, including the eponymous little prince in Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s 1943 tale.

In The Little Prince, the narrator realises that “when life's events are too difficult to understand, there is no choice but to succumb to their mysteries”. For me, that’s a good enough reason to make art.

These characters continue a menagerie of little creatures that I began drawing in 2020, while isolated in New York. Since that time, they have taken up roles in paintings, zines, symbols on fashionwear, bags, and outsize inflatables. Although they have been described as ‘part angel/ part demon’, in these new incarnations they appear more vulnerable; as if they’re pondering what they might do next. 

Like the little prince, each character isolated on their own tiny planet, quietly considering the dilemmas of “loneliness, friendship, love, and loss”.

– Visaya Hoffie

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