We have had the pleasure of studying insects with the following artists

Click on images to see more about each artist.

Dawn George, Hammonds Plains, Nova Scotia

I work with film and video because movement and sound fascinate me. I’m interested in recording natural objects that have very minimal movements like a seed, a plant, an insect, or mold and then reveal how they communicate through subtle often time-lapsed movements. I develop ways to enhance the visuals through subtle animation, colour changes, and sound design. The films I create are rooted in environmentalism with subtle elements of science fiction.

When working with film I prefer to use eco-processing developers made from the plants I am filming to bring a multifaceted quality to the image. When I work digitally, I use editing techniques, masking, compositing, time-lapse photography, and computer animation to create subtle changes in the moving images. Audio design plays a large role in my practice. I prefer to source sounds found in nature or create my own sounds (usually from my kitchen) and then use audio editing programs to adjust a sound’s features to compliment the video.

Nature provides me with a sense of inspiration and peace, and I am always seeking ways to work with it and in it. I believe that nature holds universal truths and through careful observation, it speaks to us. Through these observations, I look for the connections that help me understand life on this planet and incorporate this into my work.

Allison McElroy, Jacksonville, AL

Allison McElroy is a Professor of Art at Jacksonville State University. She received her M.F.A. from Savannah College of Art and Design. During her graduate studies, McElroy traveled to Lacoste, France where she studied on-site installation under Dr. Friedhelm Mennekes; renowned curator, professor and author. McElroy’s artistic interests lie in an exploration of ecosystems, natural processes and materials. Her research focuses on explorations of creating with everyday materials such as dirt and spiderwebs, to push the boundaries of ‘high art’; that which is exhibited in museums. Her artistic techniques include: mixed media, sound recordings, and on site installations using native materials collected from the area. JSU provides McElroy with an outdoor classroom, to teach “Art and Science Observations”, and “Biodesign”, where students focus on merging art and science together in a way to bring awareness to contemporary environmental issues.

Emy G. St-Laurent, Baie-Comeau, QC

Born in Baie-Comeau (Quebec), Emy G. St-Laurent majored in painting and  drawing in 2013 from Concordia University (Montreal). 

Her practice revolves around the unexpected relationships between organic  structures and man-made goods. She is fascinated by what socially classifies as worthy of  artistic depiction and hoards items that appeal to her personal aesthetics and symbolism.  Her compositions based off staged still lives and collages are assembled from sculptural  work, textiles, organic remains and other found materials. The busy paintings resulting from this pictorial research reminisce the artist's undying obsession with collecting  anything from fabrics, minerals and bones to naturalized insects and herbarium. Their  absurd and humoristic titles often guide the viewer towards the underlying subjects hidden  within the bizarre elements of the compositions. 

Since 2018, Emy lives and works back in her hometown as a member of Collectif de  la Dérive, a contemporary art collective. She is also involved in the administration of  L'Ouvre-Boîte Cuturel, a non-profit organization devoted to bringing a diversified cultural  offer on its territory.       

Lisa Matthias, Spruce Grove, AB

My interdisciplinary artistic practice is driven by my environmentalism and scientific training. As an artist who is also an ecologist, I’m interested in work about our environmental footprint in the Anthropocene Epoch, including the different scales at which we can view our impacts. Printmaking is a field of study that I’ve been focused on for more than a decade. I’m inspired by many different kinds of visual artists, but for generating my own work, there is nothing to compare to the experimental and technical processes and aesthetic qualifies of print media. I’m primarily a printmaker, using a variety of traditional and experimental print media, but regularly use other media like sound recording and animation in my creative practice. Much of my practice has a strong element of hand‐made craftsmanship. However, technology is embedded in the process and work, and contributes to my conceptual explorations of technology as a way to see and care for the environment. My artwork reflects how the interdisciplinarity of contemporary art and ecology can offer a unique visual perspective.

Meggan Joy Trobaugh, Seattle

Meggan Joy (Trobaugh) is an exhibiting fine art photographer and digital collage artist, who is currently located in Seattle, Washington. For the last few years, her work has focused on digitally combined flora and fauna, as well as various found objects, in a modern interpretation of a 16th-century painting technique by Giuseppe Arcimboldo. The finished work being a woven web of details, isolated on a black background - forcing the viewer to soak up the shape vs. the familiar elements that created it, or vice versa, depending on how close they look. The work reveals a subject that could never exist in the real world, made of thousands of her own photographs. Sometimes taking up to two years to complete, the finished works have been well received internationally, and Meggan was awarded an Honorable Mention by the International Photography Awards for her winning entry, "Warmth" which was completed in 2016.

Mary Abma, Bright’s Grove, ON

Mary Abma is a versatile artist who specializes in community-engaged artworks and environmental art. Always up for new challenges, Mary seeks constantly to push the edges of her practice and to learn new skills and information. Her artworks, which consist primarily of idea-based works executed in a variety of artistic forms, explore the theme of “place”. Her work embraces her interest in history, her concern for the environment, her passion for science, and her desire to find visual expression for her insights into the living world and the interconnectedness of systems. Mary’s recent works explore the systems of language and communication within the natural world.

Stephanie Hill, Wakefield, QC 

I grew up in Cornwall Ontario Canada, spending summers at our cottage on the Saint Lawrence River surrounded by extended family and miles of life filled wetlands. It’s no coincidence that much of my work focuses on family and relationships, both with others and with the natural world. I graduated from the Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD) and was privileged to partake in the college’s off-campus program in Florence, Italy. Inspired by Medieval and early Renaissance masters, my work uses symbols and mythologies to reveal a powerful and rich story. Painting is an emotional and intuitive experience for me and I often portray water, trees, flowers, animals, and insects to create a world where dreams, unconscious desires, and the divine come into play. I tend to work with oil on linen, yet also enjoy drawing on paper with watercolours, oil pastel, and pen and ink. I see my art as a deep expression of aliveness and transformation. I hope to bring those who encounter my work on a compelling and delightful journey of self-discovery that reveals the ever-changing dance between the world around us and the one within. I currently live in Wakefield, Quebec on the Gatineau River.

Doris Lamontagne, Ottawa, Canada

My art reflects on the interactions between beings in adjacent environments. It highlights the contrasts and similarities between beings and exposes the dynamism that emerges from these relationships. Whether ecological, geographical or cultural, my art makes an attempt to illustrate the dynamic nature of these worlds: attraction versus opposition.

In this series of five prints, I explore “panpsychism” which entails that all things have a mind or a mind-like quality. All things share these mental qualities: feeling, inner life, subjectivity, and perception. All things experience pleasure, pain, visual or auditory sensations, etc.

In my research, I investigate the possibility that one destiny of a being affects the destiny of all beings. Call it ecology, Gaia or holistic, everything is connected: the equilibrium between the forces of attraction and opposition keeps us breathing.

2019

Field Expeditions

Shannon Amidon, Expedition Leader
Portland, Oregon

Jennie Clark, Ontario

Jennie Clark is an active visual artist, art educator and student of natural science.
Jennie worked professionally as a graphic designer, art director and illustrator for twenty years, following graduation with honours from Ontario College of Art (OCADU). In 2006 she expanded her knowledge of contemporary art practices and graduated with honours from Georgian College Advanced Fine Art program, receiving awards for printmaking and sculpture. Her imagery is inspired by natural phenomena and an innate connectivity to the natural world, often revealed in layering and use of organic materials.

Jennie is the originator of the Simcoe Watershed Art Project, an artist collective focused on bringing artists together to express their interest in the beauty, diversity and concern for the lands and waters encircling Lakes Simcoe and Couchiching.
She offers watercolour and printmaking workshops and classes and has enjoyed presenting at the MacLaren Art Centre,Barrie; Barrie Art Club, Barrie, Quest Gallery, Midland, the Town of Innisfil and Orillia Museum of Art and History.

Nancy Yule

The aroma of melting beeswax. Intoxicating. Playing with fire. Seductive. Coaxing wax to alter its form; solid to liquid and back again, is what I love to do. The term encaustic means to burn in. Encaustic Wax. The combination of beeswax combined with damar resin, fused in countless layers. An enduring art medium with an unequivocal lustre and richness. I am humbled with the complexity of this organic material and am privileged to create artwork with it.

I work intuitively building layers of shape, colour, symbolism and abstract composition. I love blending the warmth of fibre with the encapsulation of hardened encaustic wax to reveal an unique mergence of mediums. Always challenging myself with breaking tradition and exploring new material combinations.

Mara Eagle, Montreal, QC

Through a combination of video, sound and installation, I explore the ways in which Western philosophy and science have formulated a concept of nature through discursive, methodological and representational means. Focusing on the production and consumption of spectacle, I turn to feminist theory and the history of painting to probe how 'the gaze' usually spoken of in relation to depictions of female bodies, can be mapped onto the scientific observation of natural phenomena. For example because nature is often personified as a woman, ‘unlocking’ and ‘revealing’ its ‘secrets’ and ‘hidden treasures’ carries explicitly erotic and fetishistic undertones. Likewise, the gendered metaphors so frequently inscribed into accounts of wildlife behavior harness nature as a kind of looking glass that naturalizes social norms. In examining this relationship, I wonder how do visualization technologies (microscopes, telescopes, cameras, etc.) inform ways of seeing and relationships structured by paradigms of sight?

Nature documentaries, botanical gardens, illustrated atlases, and encyclopedic museums provide visual reservoirs informing the vocabulary of my practice. I am interested in televised representations of nature in mainstream media, where it is often polarized into two extreme categories. While on the one hand associated with sites of disaster in the fall out of hurricanes, fires, floods, etc., on the other hand, landscapes are iconic in commercials promoting luxury travel, health and relaxation. Whether the agent of sublime destruction or the sanctuary for spiritual wellness, landscape imagery circulates with charged significance. 

The project I set for myself is to make work that operates exuberantly on an aesthetic level. Collage is a core dimension of my practice, facilitating cross-contamination between the realms of popular culture, scientific vernaculars, the Internet and technology industries. Working with green-screen allows me to force conflicting information together in enigmatic ways that never resolve and are often humorous. In the midst of an environmental crisis, my work speaks to the philosophical underpinnings of the categories of the natural, the human and the feminine, exploring how through modes of representation these concepts are circulated.

Amanda Besl, Buffalo, NY

I am interested in the arbitrary curation of gardening and the warfare that ensues from these choices. Frothing bubbles fade to reveal porcelain rose petals macerated and mangled by the bejeweled and ethereal bobbing corpses of drowning Japanese beetles. They tread water in the murky deathtrap of a liquid measuring cup, suggested by the round panel of the oil painting that straddles simultaneous attraction and repulsion, hyperrealism and abstraction. This duality causes both rational and irrational distinctions and subconscious prejudices to bob to the surface of our awareness. Beautiful and repulsive they exist together for a liminal time, a slow read that can’t be unread.

My process began while tending my own garden and escorting these beautiful marauders to their soapy tomb. This work is a departure from early work exploring botanical debris visible through the translucent ‘skin’ of plastic yard waste bags. I liken these paintings to America’s current turbulent political climate, in which distinctions become lost in confusion and distortion.

Joanne Price, Bagdad, Kentuky

In my studio practice, I explore multiple solutions to resolve problems or questions presented. Printmaking’s multiple nature allows me to create different versions of the same image on different paper, with different colors, collaged, and in sculptural form. My ideas often emerge from folk/fairy tales, everyday life, science, and nature — often explored through series. A long-term artist’s book project, Beneficial Insects, has stretched my skills and helped me reconnect with my love of nature while refining my ideas through research, experimentation, careful composition, and varied presentation (book, print, installation, sculpture). Utilizing micro and macro perspectives I strive to connect art and science in a way that I hope pushes past mere illustration.

I inevitably come across a very interesting avenue to explore during the research or execution phase of my ideas. I like to stay open to these side journeys because they are often experimental and important in finding new ways to express my ideas or to look at what I am doing with fresh eyes. The piece Arilus Cristatus Epoch was directly influenced by Maria Sibylla Merian’s work and illustrates an attempt to make connections between insects, earth, sky and human activities

2018

Field Expeditions

Valérie Chartrand, Winnipeg

I’ve always been fascinated by insects and by what their presence tells us about the world, both from a scientific and a metaphorical perspective. Insects through the ages have been perceived by various cultures as symbols and messengers. Today, the obsvervation of insects as bioindicators also speaks of the state of our ecology.

Primarily a printmaker, many of my prints use dried (found, never killed) insects in soft ground etchings to result in what resembles a fossil. The resulting image preserves the insect and is infused with its symbolism. Process and experimentation are at the core of my practice. I have been exploring encaustics, electroplating and insect prints of many forms including electroetching, cyanotype and photography.

As a first solo exhibition, I created Ghost Hives, a dystopian scenario through which to
contemplate causes and consequences of the disappearance of bees. I worked with bees from collapsed colonies to commemorate their past existence and reflect on their disappearance.

Through exploration, I seek to uncover what the presence and absence of insects today is telling us and how it impacts our environment and our lives.

Laura Williams, Edinburgh

As a self-taught illustrator, the fascination for natural forms, detail and pattern have been at the forefront of my practice. Part of my process involves breaking down the complexities of Mother Nature’s designs - whether it be the structural precision of a pine cone or the gnarled depth found in a washed up piece of wood - then warping them into something both familiar and surreal. Maintaining a versatile and yet close relationship with our natural environment and learning about the makeup of our world is, in my opinion, fundamental to discovering who we are and why we are here.

One of the major influences in my work is studying the careful application and minute details found in botanical, entomological and geological illustrations. Toying with beauty and the unpleasant then injecting each subject with grace, poise and significance in the hope that others will marvel at their splendor like people did when they were first discovered.

My current collection of work, Insectarium, focuses on the fragility of insects native to the UK and the increasing pressures on their ecosystems. My aim is to highlight the diverse and complex lives of our invertebrates and the importance of their roles as well as their strained relationships with the human race. I hope to communicate the connection we share with all living things and our heavy reliance on them for survival. The need to preserve and cherish this chain of life is essential and seeking opportunities, such as this residency, would be an incredible chance for me to help further my research and improve my knowledge in this line of work.

Samantha McCoy, Florida

My work is a grand scale examination of the micro universe of entomology. Florida’s torrid subtropical climate, kitschy tourist traps, and surreal chromatic skies have been a part of my life and influence the stage I set for my menagerie. My lifelong interest in the natural sciences has inspired each pair of mating insects, mollusks, and other animals. After thoughtful research and observation of these creatures, I create fantastic narratives using contemporary colors and strange scale relations. Making the subject larger than life takes us to an unseen part of our own world. By creating works of passionate promenading pests, I reveal the promiscuous activities of these somewhat anthropomorphized creatures.

Initially, pure rebelliousness drove my series. This lead to an introspective moment realizing how these hyper saturated bugs were a reflection on my own life. Growing up with a mildly conservative family and having a strong background in ballet and performing arts, my life was a stage where everything was proper and prim. I kept up the image I was brought up to have; polite and in no way belligerent. The cheeky subject put on display with a dramatic background, reflect this dichotomy within myself.

Rachel Yurkovich, Cleveland

 In our modern world, there is a struggle to monitor appetites and avoid overindulgence. I am in constant observation of thoughtless choices, noticing that we often do not realize the weight of the impact we have on ourselves and our environment. In response to this, I frame instances of uninhibited consumption and the damaging consequences they often bring. This involves the use of insects and animals as stand-ins for human situations of desire, indulgence and self-destruction. Some may be based on pre-existing phenomenon; such as chickens enjoying the taste of their eggs or praying mantises eating each other after mating. I have been recreating these situations in order to witness them myself, to see how and when they actually happen and document them. Going forward I hope to capture happenings in a more documentary way without my interference, as I did in the film Black Grass. I will film living things in their natural environment, from invertebrates to humans, that are expressive of the issues previously mentioned.

Sarah Sheesley, Michigan

I am moved by the composition of spider silk, the circulatory systems of
fish, salamander bio-regeneration and the tongues of giraffe. My writing
explores facts such as these through hybrid forms and lyric essay, with
reflection and associative logic. Each piece grows by exploring fragments
and filaments of the natural world, following these trails into unexpected
territory. My approach to these facts and observations is more playful than
scholarly, structured around associative logic and hypothetical digressions
that work to reconcile the internal world with the external. In disorienting
the reader just enough to skew our perception, flipping our relationship with
nature; a space opens for new clarity and a strange beauty.

Trained as both a painter and a writer, my creative practice engages both
visual and written text, inspired by a desire to truly see what’s in front
of me. Working in the tradition of a reflective essay, I am drawn to this
definition of reflection as “a color being reflected by one thing on another;
a coloration of an object, produced by the particular quality of light cast on
it…an iridescent highlight.” (OED) My goal is to un-hinge the boundary
between animal and human using facts and acrobatic reflection.

Paula Pinero, Spain

I am a musician involved in a creative process focus on the idea of metamorphosis. I have always been fascinated by this feature in some species, particularly in the complex case of the butterfly, which after all its transformative efforts ends as an extremely beautiful creature for a brief time. I find it an inspiring metaphor for me as an artist in a gestation process, preparing myself to discover my true identity as multi instrumentalist composer and producer. At the same time, I am seeking to translate my sound concept and aesthetic into the visual field in order to complement my work.

Quoting Antoni Gaudi “nothing is art if it does not come from nature”. I come from a Macaronesian island where contact with nature elements is everywhere. Currently, I live in the noisy and overwhelming Manhattan, appreciating more than ever to interact with nature. At this point, to take a break to breath, observe and understand the life cycle of insects in their environment are fundamental for my artistic purposes.

Insects and entomology for artists
SWARM
June 2017

Field

Michael Pisano, Pittsburgh

Michael Pisano is an animator, illustrator, and filmmaker. His first career aspiration was to be a dinosaur. Later acquisition of bifocals in suburban New Jersey led to an amateur interest in small things: ants, pondscum particles, fine print, and the Earth as featured in illustrations of the solar system.

Michael uses storytelling, from documentary to illustration series to transmedia hybrids, to educate about nature and the importance of stewardship in the Anthropocene. His nonfiction work highlights the intricacy and intertwined beauty of all living things, and the researchers and activists working to understand and protect them. His fiction work uses the treatment of nature in myth and fantasy as a point of entry into environmental justice conversations.

Since reading E.O. Wilson’s ​Naturalist​ at age 11, ants remain his favorite animal. He admires the qualities they represent: collaboration, selflessness, curiosity. Ants also remind Michael of relative scale, that humans are cells on a gently revolving giant. The giant clambers a circle around an infinite cosmos. That cosmos repeats infinitely. Simultaneously, we are each a subatomic cosmos, infinite electrons arrayed into monkey shapes wearing infinite plant fiber atoms using a variety of small boxes inside of bigger boxes, all experienced inside a fractalized matroyshka series of perceived cultural boxes. Thanks, ants.

Cynthia O’Brien, Ontario

I have two bodies of work at the moment, that are opposite yet connected.  
One body is based on the collection of plants, from down under, a “physical memory” of flowers, seed pods and leaves found in the Flecker Botanical Gardens in Cairns, Australia. I spent a month long residency at the Tanks Arts Centre (2012), with the concept of being guided by nature to see a plant from all angles, light and moods. My hands became competent in perfecting the plants, to emphasis both their strength and delicacy. With my return to Canada I have been able to recreate these flowers based on my physical (touch) memory. 

It has been this practise that lead to my interest in the physical and chemical connections of memories contained within the body and brain.  My darker, heavier body of work discusses the actual physical make up of the brain, folding back and forth onto itself to create the fast connections needed for memory.  Yet these pieces talk of emptiness, darkness and loss.
I am searching for a way to bring these bodies together to witness, create and remember beauty in as many ways as possible. 

Liam Blackwell, Montreal

My work focuses primarily on assisting the individual to transcend their body's sensory limitations. When an object is viewed from a radically close distance, an aerial perspective, or taken in through media which alters the passage of time, our senses are greatly extended – beyond those of human beings preceding our time. In effect by perceiving though such media, we have become god-like observers.
For me, the greatest wonders of photography are the ability to extend the animalian lens to the endless frontiers of inner and outer space, as well as the ability to freeze or accelerate the perception of time. My goal is to adhere to those principles the best I can while capturing the mysterious and fleeting phenomena of our natural world, which provide an infinite subject matter beyond our imagination.

Bethanne Frazer, Philadelphia

I favor the grotesque. I see it as an absolute value, not an opposite of beauty, or something in the way of the pursuit of beauty. The epitome of grotesque is a beautiful achievement. Beauty is a facet of what is grotesque, just as something we perceive as beautiful has grotesque qualities innately. The innate "ick" factor most people have to insects is quite fascinating. I choose to exploit it when possible in my imagery.  I am very interested in the natural world, specifically insects. Much of my artwork features insect imagery. Their otherworldliness fascinates me. I also find most of them aesthetically pleasing, I attempt to get past my inner “ick” factor. I have handled and gotten near to insects in the effort to further my appreciation of them. I stop to take photos and videos of insects. I research insects when I come across one I do not recognize. I appreciate the symbols insects possess in many cultures. Overall, I feel insects represent a lot of what we understand of our world in a microcosmic way. Insects have societal structure and architecture. They are numerous. All the things that influence their world influences ours. I seek meaning when I observe them. 

Creep
July 2016

Field Expeditions

Cole Swanson, Toronto

At the heart of my recent work is a posthumanist exploration of materials and their social, cultural, and biological histories. Embedded within art media and commonplace resources are complex relations between nature and culture, humans and other agents, consumers and the consumed.

My most recent project, Out of the Strong, Something Sweet began with an examination of everyday commodities and their animal-origins. This work centres around an exploration of two potent animal worlds – honeybees and domestic cattle. Connected through pre-modern rituals, allegory, and agriculture, these two species have been agential in shaping contemporary human civilization. Similarly, without human intervention, such animals would not exist in the world as we currently know them.

Through installation, field recordings, painting, and sculpture, my work attempts to bridge the gaps between disciplines and methodologies, combining a sensitivity to the distinct worlds of different species with an awareness of the gravity and agency of animal-symbols pervasive in contemporary culture. It is impossible for humans to understand the worlds of other animals. Out of the Strong, Something Sweet presents a space saturated with interspecies relationships that challenge reductive perspectives on the animal-other that dominate
contemporary life. By reimagining relationships between species, the biological, spiritual, and socio-politico-cultural forces at play become palpable.

Melinda Hurst Frye

Underneath: Views of implied urban subterranean ecosystems and life beneath our toes.

With dirt under my nails, my heart jumps when my hand brushes against a worm in the soil. I am reminded of the world that thrives underground, unsettled by the mystery that is at my fingertips. I watch the beetle make its path through the strawberry plants. Who else is below me making their work in and on the earth? The success and diversity of life near and below the surface contributes directly to life and survival above the surface, however it is a dominant mystery to many. ‘Underneath’ is a series of implied urban subterranean ecosystems, an illustrated look at what lives, dies and feasts at ground level and below. The work is a combination of scans, photographs and digital painting, brought together to build a realistic, though peculiar scene. Exploiting the detail from the high-resolution images, the viewer can examine the underground tableaux closely as it unfolds and reveals itself. The images live in the space between the real and the mysterious to echo wonder and discovery.

Brenda Petays, Victoria, BC

My work explores cultural identity, cultural adaptation and relationships between people and the land. I am interested in human behaviors, motivations and social interactions. My main method of working is observation. I spend a lot of time watching what people do. Through artworks I interpret my observations – in notes and drawings – which take shape as art forms: performances, installations, paintings or sculptures.I enjoy building collaborative projects within a community and working in an assemblage process with materials often collected from the local environment. I am open-minded to learning new disciplines and skills to push my work forward and explore different ideas/cultures.

Art and craft are a way of thinking about the world that enables me to form and develop my identity and see the identity of others. Art making and communicating through art is a self-affirming activity that helps me to interpret, think about and challenge conventions.