British street artist Jody Thomas shines a light on the global issue of plastic pollution with his new mural, a reworked version of the iconic poster for the blockbuster movie “Jaws.”
Thomas swapped the swimmer from the original 1975 movie’s promo with a plastic bottle in the artwork he painted in his home city of Bristol, southwest England, this week. The shark in his version is surrounded by pieces of plastic trash.
Compare it to the original poster here:
It’s the second environmentally themed piece that Thomas, a contemporary of Banksy at Bristol’s Barton Hill Aerosol Art Project in the 1980s, has produced this year.
In May, he painted a 50-foot-high mural of Swedish teenage climate change activist Greta Thunberg. She now uses the image as her profile picture on Instagram.
“I don’t think I’ll ever recreate the media storm that surrounded my Greta piece,” Thomas told HuffPost on Friday. “It’s like my difficult second album, but on a smaller scale.”
Thomas said he opted for the “Cause” strapline on his new work because it rhymes with “Jaws” and is “kind of a rallying cry as well.”
“I did joke about having Greta as the swimmer, but felt it would be too comedic, too silly,” he added.
Thomas collaborated on the piece with officials at the city’s science center, We The Curious, which in June became the first such hub in the world to declare a climate emergency.
Greta, 16, is currently traveling to the United States aboard a 60-foot solar-powered, zero-emissions yacht. She plans to participate in the United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York next month.
This article has been updated to include Thomas’ comments.