Greg Steele (b 1967)
is primarily concerned with the notions of recycling, preservation, protection, beautification and creation. Shipping crates originally enter the country as functional packing crates used to house machines imported, from China, for use in the precision engineering industry. Once the machines are unpacked the crates are discarded. The surface has gone from being a functional object to a waste product. Once acquired, the surface begins a transformation from waste product to art object. This entails the layering of subtleties which appear as trace elements on the surface. These trace elements have their origin either in the original surface markings or in the industrial drawings associated with the machines originally housed by the surfaces. These drawings are schematic representations of the parts turned out by the machines, examples of these parts can be seen attached to a number of the crate surfaces. It is important to note that in the working of each piece the surface markings remain.