#john sabraw

[for-what-its-earth-blog]

Personal Sustainability: John Sabraw

“The artist, like the scientist, has a crucial role to perform in our society...see things differentially, act on this vision, report the failures and successes.”

The artist John Sabraw uses toxic runoff found in the Ohio River region to produce his own DIY pigment. The colors are sourced from oxidized sludge of abandoned coal mines instead of importing paint colors. Sabraw is an activist and environmentalist who brings awareness to pollution. For what it’s Earth, he is an example of someone using their skills to live sustainably and bring awareness.

[angrywhistler]

John Sabraw Arco, Oil on Canvas 96x62 inches, 2013

[islipartmuseum-blog]

Poison Play Curated by Beth Giacummo April 10 - June 5, 2016 

[hyperallergic]

Painting with Toxic Sludge

[puttingpen2paper-blog]

PowerPoint Presentation: Day FIVE

Syncline: Tumeric by John Sabraw. Mixed media on aluminum composite panel, 12x12 inches. 

This wonderful piece is by the artist John Sabraw. He uses different paint elements and types of pigments and allows them to react naturally together over a period of days or months. He does this because he has a passion for "sustainability" and uses this theory in the process of making his art. He uses certain materials and techniques to create his canvases and paints. He also lives green by only using natural light, walking instead of driving, and by using a programmable thermostat. 

I really admire his way of thinking the changes he made his in process and life. I'm a recycling junkie and am constantly nagging others to not toss those plastic bottles in the trash when there's a recycle bin around the corner. I'm that person who takes home glass bottles from parties and saves cardboard boxes at work. 

I believe that not only is his art beautiful what it looks like, but more for what it represents - a new understanding and way of art making.

[madeleinevalley]

Painting With Pollution Has Never Looked So Beautiful

John Sabraw is an artist and professor from Ohio who's devised a unique way of raising awareness of his state's pollution problem.

[smithsonianmag]

Toxic Runoff Yellow and Other Paint Colors Sourced From Polluted Streams

By Megan Gambino

Photos © John Sabraw

John Sabraw, an associate professor of art at Ohio University, uses sustainable materials in his own artwork. He takes slimy, metal-laden runoff from coal mines and turns it into paint. Toxic runoff from coal mines and commercial red and yellow paints have a common ingredient—ferric oxyhydroxides. Once the acidic ground water hits the air, the metals in it oxidize and the once-clear water turns yellow, orange, red or brown. To make paints of these colors, international companies basically mimic this reaction, adding chemicals to water tanks containing scrap metals.

Sabraw has been impressed with the range of colors that can be made with the iron oxides (above). “You can get anything from a mustardy yellow all the way to an incredibly rich, deep, deep almost-black brown out of it,” he says. See more at Smithsonian.com.