During exhibitions, Museum Valkenburg highlights a specific work together with the artist or art connoisseurs, this time ‘Times are hard for dreamers’ by Nikki Pelaez.
Times are hard for dreamers
For me, this work is about the relationship that we as human beings have with nature and animals. In this case the oceans and seas with all its plants and fish and other living creatures.
It always touches me to see images of fish with plastic in their bodies or animals that get stuck in a piece of plastic waste. The fact that so much plastic is now on the seabed and that it ends up everywhere and disrupts nature is terrible.
Plastic does not dig up along the biological path and all large and small pieces of plastic simply remain in the sea and are deadly to many marine animals. All kinds of animals that live in or from the sea regard the small pieces of plastic as food. On the way to the sea, plastic particles also absorb all kinds of toxic substances from sewers and polluted areas that they pass through, making it a sort of poisonous bombs. These substances are released into the body of the animal that eats the plastic.
It is so terribly sad. Yet every year I see the mess lying on the beaches. . plastic straws, broken air beds, inflatable balls, numerous plastic bottles. People just leave it. Unbelieveable.
As humans, we must do everything we can to solve this problem, produce less plastic, do not dump waste into the sea. We have to deal with nature again with respect and love.
That is why I have placed the two girls / sisters as patrons to the left and right of the tropical fish.
I can only hope that there will be greater awareness and that everyone contributes to keeping the oceans and seas clean.
Nikki Pelaez.
The exhibition of Nikki Pelaez ‘A strange delight’ can be seen until January 5, 2020, look here for more information: https://www.museumvalkenburg.nl/en/agenda/a-strange-delight-2/
