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PORTAL Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies, vol. 13, no. 1, January 2016. 
The Transcultural Edge, curated by Ilaria Vanni Accarigi. 
© 2016 [Rox De Luca]. http://dx.doi.org/10.5130/portal.v13i1.4793.  
 
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported (CC BY 4.0) 
License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), allowing third parties to copy and redistribute the material in any 
medium or format and to remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially, provided the 
original work is properly cited and states its license.  
 
PORTAL is published under the auspices of UTSePress, Sydney, Australia.  
ISSN: 1449-2490; http://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/ojs/index.php/portal.  

 
 
 
 
 
 
Abundance, Excess, Waste  
 
Rox De Luca, Sydney-based Artist 
 

 

 
 

Figure 1: Miscellaneous found plastics, 2015 © Rox De Luca. 



De Luca         Abundance, Excess, Waste 

 
PORTAL, vol. 13, no. 1, January 2016.  2 

My work since the early 2010s has focused on the concepts of abundance, excess and 

waste. These concerns have translated directly into vibrant and colourful garlands I have 

constructed from discarded plastics collected on Bondi Beach, Sydney, where I live. 

 
The process of collecting is fastidious, as is the process of sorting and grading the 

plastics by colour and size. This initial gathering and sorting process is followed by 

threading the components onto strings of wire. When completed, these assemblages 

stand in stark contrast to the ease of disposability associated with the materials that 

arrive on the shoreline, evidence of our collective human neglect and destruction of the 

environment around us. 

 
The contrast is heightened by the fact that the constructed garlands embody the 

paradoxical beauty of our plastic waste byproducts, while also evoking the ways by 

which those byproducts similarly accumulate in randomly assorted patterns across the 

oceans and beaches of the planet. 

 
*     *     * 

 
In response to works from the exhibition ‘Saved—Project Wall’ at the James Dohary 

Project Space, Sydney, in October 2012, the critic Jacqueline Milner located this 

ambulatory approach to collecting and reassembling the plastic detritus of contemporary 

life in a long tradition of artist engagements with and fascination for found objects and 

their malleable capacities to signify anew: 

 
Walking, collecting and aesthetics intersect in the practice of many artists, offering a way to 
engage with place and landscape that materially connects the personal with the public. Such an 
approach also allows an artist to tread lightly, as the artwork generally reconfigures what is already 
there rather than adding yet another commodity to a congested world. 
 
There is a kind of humility to this way of working, a recognition both of the creativity inherent in 
the everyday, and of the value of the small gesture that can subtly, but sometimes powerfully, 
change one’s take on things.1 

 
More specifically, for Milner, ‘[De Luca’s] scour[ing of] her local beach—Sydney’s 

iconic Bondi—for plastic traces which she then assembles in long ropes using the tools 

of a jeweller,’ is guided by formal and social parameters. That is, colour choices guide 

the compositional process, the brightly hued results then appearing to ‘sprout’ from  

                                                
1 Jacqueline Milner, notes to accompany the exhibition ‘Saved—Project Wall,’ James Dohary Project 
Space, Sydney, October 2012. 



De Luca         Abundance, Excess, Waste 

 
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Figure 2: Installation view, Saved – Project Wall, James Dorahy Project Space, October 2012  

© Rox De Luca. 
 



De Luca         Abundance, Excess, Waste 

 
PORTAL, vol. 13, no. 1, January 2016.  4 

walls or to coil up from the floor, in installations that heighten the works’ ‘potential for  

transformation and endless accretion. Celebratory garlands (a mermaid’s necklace?), or 

chains ready to strangle unsuspecting marine life? The works read like rosaries that 

count out either the pleasures of summer days or the sins of environmental neglect.’  

 

I want my compositions to shift between the entrancingly beautiful and the grotesque; 

and that sensation of uneasiness is amplified when the works are placed back into the 

environment from which their bases in excess and waste originated. 

 

 
 

Figure 3: Saved (Rusty pipe), Exhibited: Sculpture by the Sea, 2013, site-specific sculpture 
Found plastics, wire, 15 metres in length © Rox De Luca. 



De Luca         Abundance, Excess, Waste 

 
PORTAL, vol. 13, no. 1, January 2016.  5 

 
  
Figure 4: ‘Cassata,’ 2012, found plastics, 10 x 22 x 20cm. From the exhibition Saved Project Wall, James 

Dorahy Project Space, October 2012 © Rox De Luca. 
 

 
 

Figure 5: ‘Cassata, detail.’ 
From the exhibition Saved Project Wall, James Dorahy Project Space, October 2012 © Rox De Luca. 



De Luca         Abundance, Excess, Waste 

 
PORTAL, vol. 13, no. 1, January 2016.  6 

	
 

Figure 6: ‘Saved (Pink#1), detail,’ October 2012 © Rox De Luca. 



De Luca         Abundance, Excess, Waste 

 
PORTAL, vol. 13, no. 1, January 2016.  7 

	

 
Figure 7: ‘Saved (Blue) bundle,’ 20 x 30 x 26cm, found plastics, wire October 2012 © Rox De Luca. 

 
 
 

 
 

Figure 8: Saved (Blue aviation seals), detail, found plastics, 2015 © Rox De Luca. 



De Luca         Abundance, Excess, Waste 

 
PORTAL, vol. 13, no. 1, January 2016.  8 

 
 

Figure 9: Cassata (for Marco), 12 x 14 x 10 cm, 2015 © Rox De Luca. 

 

 
 

Figure 10: Saved (torrone), 2015, work in progress, found plastic and wire, 10 x 15 x 12 cm,  
2015 © Rox De Luca.