Creative Critters

If the thought of interlocking hearts makes you double over then you should gather all your single friends and have a post-Valentines Day event. On February 26 from 7:00 - 10:00 the OBSERVATORY, an art and events space in Brooklyn, is hosting an event of epic Entomologic proportions. The showing lasts until April 4th, 2010 but they always say the early bird gets the worm...

Okay if I just ruined it for you (with that corny joke) please note all the one-liners I enjoy cracking have no place at this exhibit. The art is grouped around a central theme: inspired by insects. But the levels of interpretation and deep symbolic meanings are scattered like leaves on late autumnal day. There is a private world of highly intellectual individuals who dedicate themselves to studying insects. French Author and Entomologist Jean Henri Fabre explains the life cycle of a Cicada with fervent passion:

“For four years he has dug the earth with his feet, and then suddenly he is dressed in exquisite raiment, provided with wings that rival the bird’s, and bathed in heat and light. What cymbals can be loud enough to celebrate his happiness, so hardly earned, and so very, very short?”

The deep metaphorical meaning engraved in the segments of this tiny miraculous creatures is often lost. We tend to focus on human narratives, and if we include other creatures they are made-up (Ahem Avatar) or steeped in zoological fields of study.
Something is charming about critters. Appendages of iridescent shades, the nets of webbed wings floating in motion-- there is art inside the segments of some of our smallest creatures. I think they are making a modern-day comeback. This exhibit features the work of many talented artists. Jennifer Angus' work from Worm's Eye View is posted here but click her name to view the full collection.
Chirstopher Marley is an example of an artist not showing at OBSERVATORY but who has been bitten by the bug-trend. He uses bugs in elaborate visual compositions the same way that painters use color, texture and form to paint.

Marley pays local collectors for the exotic specimens. (Don't worry that his interest in art is draining the fragile tropical ecosystems; Marley says the money aspect helps preserves them since there is an economic incentive to find the critters.) It seems like artists are striving to capture the mythological magic of bugs on a large scale and mimic the intricate detail on the tiny limbs and thorax on the smaller.