Maika‘i Tubbs utilizes found detritus to create sculptures and installations around themes of obsolescence, consumption, and ecology. He regards discarded objects as untapped resources and transforms them to reveal a world of hidden, limitless potential. His process-oriented work reflects honest observations of unnatural familiarity influenced by the blurred boundaries between organic and artificial life. Tubbs’ recent work draws upon the geological discovery of plastiglomerate, a fusion of micro plastic, rock, sand, basalt, coral and wood. The abundance of these man-made hybrids found along the coastline of Hawai’i Island presents an indicator of humankind’s environmental impact as well as a shift in the concept of nature itself. Tubbs creates his own version of these stones from the detritus of urban city life and slices them open to expose the intricate layers of cardboard, paper, plastic containers, shopping bags and fragments within them. As objects they serve as traces of the waste material landscape that helped forge them and also as future fossil records.

Maika’i Tubbs is from Honolulu, Hawai’i and lives in Brooklyn, New York. When he is not out collecting trash and hoarding it in his studio, you can find him in or along the nearest body of water. His work has been shown in Hawai‘i, Washington D.C., Canada and Japan.