How and Why Does Yuken Teruya Transform a Mcdonald’s Bag in Order to Convey Social and Environmental Issues in His Work?

1819 Words8 Pages
How and why does Yuken Teruya transform a McDonald’s bag in order to convey social and environmental issues in his work? KATE MCINTYRE How and why does Yuken Teruya transform a McDonald’s bag in order to convey social and environmental issues in his work? Yuken Teruya created a series called Notice Forrest in 2003 which consists of a number of everyday paper shopping bags, for example: McDonald’s; Cartier; Le Bon Mache; Louis Vuitton ; Channel and delicately carved the sides out to create miniature Trees inside the bags themselves. I came across some of his work at the Saatchi Gallery in 2013; I was particularly drawn to the simple McDonald’s bag that had been transformed to become a delicate, fragile, intricate work of art that oozed colour and almost kept me glued to looking at every millimetre of detail . Yuken Teruya Golden Arch Parkway McDonald's (Japanese) Yuken Teruya Golden Arch Parkway McDonald's (Japanese) On closer inspection you can see the detail of the tree, the braches and even the individual leaves. The tree is, in fact, cut from the top surface of the bag, the logo side and is still attached at its extremities. The light reflects through the cut away bag onto the tree showing the colours of the McDonalds logo as coloured branches, the white trunk provides wonderful contrast. A bland space is turned into an incredible work of art, with amazing depth. I wanted to understand more about Yuken Teruya’s work and what his motivation was in using, what could be described as, rubbish bags to create something so artistic Yuken Teruya was born in Okinawa Japan in 1973. He received a BFA from Tokyo Tama Art University in 1996. At age 25 Yuken moved to the United States where he enrolled in the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, He went on to New York and gained an MFA from the school

More about How and Why Does Yuken Teruya Transform a Mcdonald’s Bag in Order to Convey Social and Environmental Issues in His Work?

Open Document