Millions of pounds of “trash” are discarded around the world on a daily basis. Second Time Around: The Hubcap as Art is a proactive response to the growing concern for human impact on the environment. This traveling exhibition opens on January 26 at the J. Wayne Stark Galleries and features work by artists who answered a challenge to reclaim rusted automobile hubcaps and transform them into their own statements.  Not only are these metal scraps saved from the landfill, but they are repurposed to convey creative and political messages about consumption in American culture.

Second Time Around features thirty-five unique selections from Landfillart, Inc., a Pennsylvania-based nonprofit that solicited artists from around the world to transform discarded hubcaps into fine art. Artists from around the world have answered founder and artist Ken Marquis’s call to action. The “metal canvases” serve to empower artists with a message to incite creative thinking and problem-solving for environmental issues. In turn, visitors are confronted with new perspectives of the material culture we live in. For example, Artist Marla Mclean’s piece Witness uses avian and reflective motifs to inspire viewers to recall their own involvement with the natural world from the viewpoint of a sparrow. In addition, Second Time Around features works by David Medley, Rick Dethlefsen, and Noel Molloy that will intrigue and inspire audiences to approach their own relationship to the natural world in a fresh way.