Esther Park

MFA MJCC, 2025

My work highlights the everyday materials that shape our lives, transforming them into adornment that transcends their original purpose. Through this practice, I examine consumer culture and value systems, focusing on plastic and its overwhelming presence in daily life. We encounter its excess constantly—through touch, consumption, and surroundings. Now indispensable, plastic seeps into both our bodies and environments, embedding itself in a throwaway-driven society. 

My current work repurposes ubiquitous plastic eating utensils into art jewelry, establishing a tangible link between life-sustaining actions and the tactile experience of materials. In addition to plastic, I melt and recast recycled aluminum from discarded soda cans, emphasizing an alternative approach to waste and reimagining overlooked materials as something valuable and enduring. This practice is not merely a critique of single-use plastic overconsumption but a reflection on its enduring presence and the way it intertwines with essential rituals. 

Repetition of plastic forms and textures in my work is rooted in semantic association. While remnants of their original shapes remain, manipulation invites new interpretations. Through heat transformation, recognizable objects shift into abstract, organic forms, imbuing the material with vitality. By incorporating visible traces of casting, stone setting, and jewelry components, I elevate plastic’s inherent qualities—affordability, disposability, and lightness—into new expressions of worth. 

I am particularly drawn to black plastic, a material both ubiquitous and controversial. Due to limitations in Near-Infrared (NIR) sorting technology, black plastic is largely unrecyclable, often ending up in landfills or incinerators. Yet paradoxically, black embodies the harmony of all colors—existing everywhere yet holding infinite possibilities within itself.  

By merging these elements, I explore how materials can transcend their intrinsic roles through jewelry. When worn on the body, my work invites tactile and personal engagement, encouraging viewers to reconnect with materiality through texture, sound, and weight. In doing so, I reshape the overlooked into adornment, reconnecting perceptions of worth and permanence.