1963 - present

Bondi-based visual artist Rox De Luca is often seen walking along Bondi Beach, picking up discarded plastic pieces and other odd objects.

A trained painter, De Luca received a Bachelor of Arts (Visual) from Canberra School of Art, the Australian National University (1985) and a Graduate Diploma in Arts Administration from the University of New South Wales (1988). She has exhibited regularly in solo and group exhibitions for over three decades and has been a finalist in the Fishers Ghost, Ravenswood Woman’s Art Prize and Deakin Small Sculpture Prizes.  In 2019, De Luca was awarded her first artist-in-residence at Fremantle Art Centre in Western Australia. She has since served residencies at Gunyah Residency Program, NSW (2021) and Social Good Summit, NIDA, Sydney (2022). She was also artist-in-residence at the Woollahra Gallery at Redleaf in 2022 and a resident of the Waverley Artist Studios in 2024.

For many years, De Luca painted on discarded materials as a base, using aluminium offset printing plates or pre-loved book-covers from book binders.  In 2010, she instinctively began collecting colourful plastic shards on beaches, whilst her young son was enjoying the surf. What began as a quiet pastime has developed into a passionate material-based expression of caring. Most days she gleans along Bondi and nearby beaches looking for pieces of plastic waste. This is usually followed by the cleaning and sorting of the plastics by colour and size, and then the jewellery-like threading of the plastic components onto strings of wire – all painstakingly slow processes.  De Luca’s creations also featured at the Sculpture by the Sea in 2013 and 2016 along the Bondi to Tamarama coastal walk. Her first exhibit at the popular outdoor arts event was a large bundle of white plastics wrapped around a rusty pipe. On closer inspection, viewers would realise it was made using single-use cutlery and other plastic waste.

De Luca questions the wastefulness in our society and conveys the message of environment protection with her craft. She says, “Whether it’s using paint or whatever you’ve found, hopefully people can reflect on the piece and think back on their own relationship to the material and the environment.”

Images courtesy Rox De Luca, Ruth Bernstein, the Chinese Cultural Centre, Oliver Miller, docqument, Andrew Worssam, Clyde Yee, and Ian Hobbs.