Artist Lenore Solmo is busy working on a piece with a soldering item that will eventually look like an octopus. The piece is made from a used plastic water cooler bottle she found on the street in her Bay Ridge neighborhood.

Solmo's work is on display at the Compére Collective gallery in Red Hook in her first solo exhibit called "Through a Plastic Lens, Art made from what we leave behind by Lenore Solmo."

Solmo has been upcycling found items and turning them into art for four years. She started when she was furloughed from her job in the fashion industry during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Plastic became my material of choice, because it can be molded and pierced and colored, so I decided to do this full time," Solmo said.

Solmo's process begins with her searching for objects to use for her art in the streets.

In the exhibit in a section devoted to flowers, one piece uses a Costco croissant tray and plastic bottles. All kinds of bottles and even a netted vegetable bag are used for a tribute to the ocean.

The gallery is actually within the Realty Collective real estate office, which has been welcoming emerging artists for around a decade.

"People walk by and they love coming into the space and they find it very creative and different," said Farah Casalini, the gallery manager at Compére Collective.

For Solmo, the work saving items that otherwise would be in the trash, street, landfill or ocean is satisifying.

"It just makes me so happy to find things and upcycle them into something else. That's really what turns me on, seeing something and saying, 'I think I can make it into something else,'" Solmo said.

Solmo says her future goal is to travel to other cities and see what kind of trash is found there.