Chris Jordan

Gyre II, 40x56 and 60x76. Depicts 50,000 cigarette lighters, equal to the estimated number of pieces of floating plastic in every square mile in the world's oceans. 

Chris Jordan is an artist based in Seattle, Washington who is best known for his large scale works depicting mass consumption and waste, particularly garbage. He has been called "the 'it' artist of the green movement".

Many of Jordan's works are created from photographs of garbage and mass consumption, a serendipitous technique which started when he visited an industrial yard to look at patterns of color and order. His industrious passion for conservation and awareness has brought much attention to his photography in recent years. Jordan uses everyday commonalities such as a plastic cup and defines the blind unawareness involved in American consumerism. His work, while often unsettling, is a bold message about unconscious behaviors in our everyday lives, leaving it to the viewer to draw conclusions about the inevitable consequences which will arise from our habits. source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Jordan_%28artist%29