Contours, 2010

Tessa Grundon, Contours series, 2015, Mud and beeswax on handmade paper, 18 x 18 inches, Courtesy of the artist

Abstract composition of topography-like lines upon a brown dyed paper surface. Plastic Tides takes as its departure point discarded plastic bags and other objects from around the world that regularly wash ashore in New York Harbor. Grundon’s innovative printing of these already abstract, found compositions on the reverse of the photo paper creates fuzzy object boundaries that bleed into one another—serving as a metaphor for the arbitrariness of modern-day borders.