Artist Statement: Plastic was the promise—to preserve, protect, contain. Cheap, endless, everywhere, it seeps into water, soil, breath. We are becoming a debris field, made of our own convenience—entangled with a material that preserves even as it suffocates.

Artist Bio: Maria Phillips is a Seattle-based artist, educator, and Co-Manager of the Recology King County Artist in Residence Program. Her work transforms discarded materials into site-responsive installations that examine systems of consumption, accumulation, and environmental persistence, challenging conventional notions of value and permanence.

Phillips earned her BA in Communication Design from Loyola University New Orleans and her MFA in Visual Art from the University of Washington. She lectures, teaches, and serves as a guest critic at institutions nationwide. Her work is held in the collections of the Museum of Arts and Design, the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Tacoma Art Museum, Seattle University, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, among others.

Her work has been featured in The Art of Enameling, 1000 Rings, 500 Brooches, and The Penland Book of Jewelry, to which she contributed a chapter on the process of Electroforming. In 2017, she received the John and Joyce Price Award of Excellence in the Bellevue Art Museum Biennial, which led to her solo exhibition Hidden in Plain Sight. Her recent body of work, At What Point, was presented at 4Culture in Seattle.

Since her participation in the Recology residency in 2018, Phillips has focused on working exclusively with found materials, developing a practice rooted in environmental stewardship, material awareness, and public engagement. Through her work, she fosters dialogue around sustainability, responsibility, and the long-term impact of everyday choices.