Annalee Tueller and Mia Tullis - 2024
Artist's Statement
The inspiration for our project was the painting “Ophelia” by Sir John Everett Millais. It was painted between 1851 and 1852, both in Surrey and in London (intext). Millais got his inspiration from the Shakespear play “Hamlet”, and the death of the character Ophelia. The story goes like this:
There, on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds
Clamb'ring to hang, an envious sliver broke,
When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide
And mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up;
Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes,
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and endued unto
that element. But long it could not be
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.
Ophilia was trying to hang a wreath of flowers on a tree when she slipped and fell into the river. Her large gown spread out under her, keeping her afloat for some time. Eventually, the gown began to be saturated with water, slowly dragging her down to death, as she sang her songs the whole time. Ophilia was unaware of the danger she was in, and perhaps a little mad as she had just witnessed the death of her father at the hand of her lover, Hamlet. So, she just kept singing, until she eventually drowned (Tate, n.d.).
Our painting is of Ophilia, but instead of water being the only thing dragging her down, the river is full of trash, waste, manmade plastics and containers, etc. which is also contributing to her ultimate demise. It is a watercolor painting, with details made by colored paintings, painted on watercolor paper. The painting shows a vibrant riverbed full of waste that was ultimately left by the human population. It shows Ophilia, the maiden, in a bright yellow dress floating down a river, ultimately drowned by the vast amount of waste and water. Yet, she is still singing, unaware that the waste she used every day would be her demise.
We believe that this is a similar fate that will befall us in the modern age. For too long we have been buoyed up by modern waste like plastics, papers, aluminum, emissions, and more. They have kept us afloat for over 100 years, and, arguably, we needed this waste in order to make the leaps and bounds we have made in world development. Now, however, it is taking a toll on our planet. Needing 1.8 Earth’s to survive the amount of waste we are producing is clearly not sustainable and something needs to change. Like Ophilia, we don’t even realize how detrimental this waste is. Even though it seems like it is keeping us above water so to speak, we are slowly being dragged down into an inescapable future if we don’t make a change, and soon! We aspire to be different from Ophilia, and instead of singing silly songs until we die, we want to fight to escape the river we’ve fallen in, and reduce the use of emissions, plastics, non-sustainable garbage, and practices that will cause our planet to drown.
During this class, we’ve learned about several different ways we can reduce waste, such as recycling, biking or walking, not supporting companies that produce mass amounts of waste, and more. We’ve also learned that government plays a huge role in this problem, and that we likely will need to take a stand against government complacency and demand a seat at the table to converse about this issue. We will only be able to change if the world works together, if everyone understands the problem, and if everyone is willing to put in the effort it takes to save our planet from destruction. It is our hope and ultimately our prayer that our succeeding generations can live in a world that is more conscious of what they produce and use, and that the problems we face today can be reduced enough that our descendants can enjoy the natural wonder that is the Planet Earth.
Works Cited
Tate. (n.d.). The Story of Ophelia | Tate. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/millais- ophelia-n01506/story-ophelia