While other artists might use watercolors or oil paints, Mbongeni Buthelezi uses waste plastics to create highly textured portraits at his studio in Booysens, Johannesburg.

His medium is the plastic litter he collects from local rubbish dumps and city streets. “Animals are dying, fish in the ocean are dying — because of this material and because of us human beings,” Buthelezi said. “It is us that need to take responsibility.”

An artist and activist, Buthelezi, 56, first found his talent for the creative as a boy in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. He sculpted clay figurines of the livestock around his village: cows, horses and goats.

But not everything in this rural setting was natural. Plastic litter was so common in grazing areas that it became an unwelcome part of the cows’ regular diet. “We would see these cows die because they had eaten plastics,” Buthelezi said.

Five decades on, South Africa still has a serious plastic pollution problem. In 2018, 107,000 metric tons of plastic waste from South Africa ended up in the marine environment. A 2015 study found that the country was one of the world’s top 20 contributors to marine plastic pollution.

With plastic waste growing around the world, Buthelezi is using his work to both highlight and combat the issue.

Buthelezi’s use of waste wasn’t always in defense of the environment; he first began using plastic litter for his art because he couldn’t afford more traditional mediums.

At 22, when the country was still under apartheid, he enrolled in full-time classes at a community arts school in Soweto, a township in Johannesburg.

He took with him just two blankets, very little money, and a lot of optimism. There he lived in a small room and worked odd jobs between classes to afford rent and food. He had no money for materials.

There was no formal schooling in the townships, and the community-based institutions, like his college, received no support from the state.

“The school introduced us to things like collage — using old magazines to create an artwork if you don’t have money for paints,” said Buthelezi. “Without those fancy traditional ways of making art, we expanded our way of looking at art and life.”

“Next to my studio at the college was a dumping site,” he recalled. “I saw all of these brilliant colors, these materials … and I said to myself, what can I do to make sense of these plastics that are everywhere?”

He began collecting plastic litter to “paint” with in lieu of expensive oil paints. He developed a technique of using an electric heat gun that produced hot air to melt the plastic and then apply it to a recycled canvas.

According to Buthelezi this is more environmentally friendly than using flames to melt plastic and doesn’t release noxious fumes into the atmosphere.

After completing his studies at the African Institute of Art and subsequently the Johannesburg Art Foundation, he went on to achieve an advanced Diploma in Fine Arts from the University of the Witwatersrand.

Buthelezi still makes works using the same method of melting waste plastic. The works are figurative and mostly explore the experience of growing up in a South African township. Throughout his career he has used his art to educate and begin conversations on global plastic waste. “The world we live in today can offer us everything we need to make art without manufacturing more,” he said.

Buthelezi has held exhibitions, participated in festivals, led workshops, and taken up artist residencies in countries including Germany, the U.S., Barbados, Egypt, Australia, and Saudi Arabia.

Although his efforts have won widespread praise, Buthelezi says not everyone has been so supportive. “Some people say, ‘you will run out of plastics one day and then you won’t be able to do your work,’” he said. “They don’t understand that I would be happy if that happened. That is what I’m fighting for!”

Words to Learn 相关词汇

【种族隔离】

zhǒngzú gélí

apartheid

(in South Africa) a policy or system of segregation or discrimination on grounds of race

【拼贴艺术】

pīntiē yìshù

collage

a piece of art made by sticking various different materials on to a backing

其他艺术家使用水彩或油彩作画时，姆邦杰尼•布特莱齐在他位于约翰内斯堡布伊森斯的工作室里使用废弃塑料创作质感丰富的肖像画。

他的媒介是从当地垃圾场和城市街道收集的塑料垃圾。布特莱齐说：“因为塑料，因为我们人类，动物正在死去，海洋里的鱼也正在死去，我们需要为此承担责任。”

现年56岁的布特莱齐是一名艺术家兼活动家，成长在南非夸祖鲁-纳塔尔省的农村地区，儿时就发现了自己的创作天赋，他用泥巴替村子里的牛、马和山羊塑像。

在这个农村环境中，并非所有东西都是天然的。塑料垃圾在牧区非常普遍，常被牛误食。布特莱齐说：

“我们看到牛因为吃了塑料而死掉。”

五十年过去了，南非的塑料污染依然严重。2018年，来自南非的10.7万吨塑料垃圾最终进入了海洋环境。2015年的一项研究发现，该国是造成全球海洋塑料污染最严重的20个国家地区之一。

塑料垃圾在世界各地蔓延，布特莱齐则利用他的作品唤起人们对问题的关注。布特莱齐创作最初的出发点不是为了环保；他开始使用塑料垃圾进行艺术创作是因为买不起传统画材。

布特莱齐22岁时，南非仍处于种族隔离制度下，他报名参加了约翰内斯堡索韦托镇一所社区艺术学校的全日制课程。两张毯子、一点点钱和乐观精神是他仅有的财富。他住在一个小房间里，学习之余打零工来支付房租和食物，没钱买画材。

乡镇没有正规学校，他报名的社区学校没有来自国家的支持。

“在学校我们了解到拼贴画 ——如果没钱买颜料，就用旧杂志来创作艺术品，”布特莱齐说。“跳出传统艺术创作方式，我们看待艺术和生活更加自由。”

他回忆说，“学校的工作室旁是个垃圾场，垃圾有着绚丽的色彩......我问自己，能用这些随处可见的塑料做点什么呢？”

他开始收集塑料垃圾代替昂贵的油画颜料“作画”。他发明了一种方法，使用电热枪喷射的热空气融化塑料，然后将其涂在回收的画布上。布特莱齐说，这比用明火融化塑料更环保，不会向大气中释放有毒气体。

在非洲艺术学院和约翰内斯堡艺术基金会完成学业后，他又获得了威特沃特斯兰德大学的高级美术文凭。

布特莱齐现在仍然使用这种方法熔化废塑料来创作。这些作品是一种隐喻，主要探索在南非乡镇的成长经历。整个职业生涯中，他一直用艺术来教育人们和促成关于全球塑料垃圾问题的讨论。他说：“我们生活的世界提供了艺术创作所需的一切材料，不需要制造更多材料。”

布特莱齐在包括德国、美国、巴巴多斯、埃及、澳大利亚和沙特阿拉伯在内的多个国家办展览，参加艺术节，主持研讨会，并参与了驻地艺术家项目。虽然他的努力赢得了广泛赞誉，但布特莱齐说并不是所有人都这么支持他。他说：“有些人说，‘有一天塑料用完了，然后你就没法创作了。’他们不明白，如果这一天到来，我会很高兴。这就是我的奋斗目标！”(SD-Agencies)