ECLOSION Catalogue

still lifes to surreal dreamscapes4,5. Below, I mention a few of these contemporary artists with hints of their inspirations, recent and ancient.

Steven Kutcher is an entomology consultant, insect wrangler, and educator who collaborates with insects to esthetically record their perambulations across canvases.

Kutcher purposefully intervenes with external stimuli to affect insect movement patterns, while other artists have simply followed their paths using a blue ballpoint pen (Jan Fabre, Belgian Caddisfly larva (Order Trichoptera) adorned with mastermind behind the Palace of Brussels’ elytra-covered Mirror its newly-constructed, jeweled case (2.5 cm Room) or red chalk (Yukinori Yanagi, Japanese creator of long). Photo by Frédéric Delpech. Reproduced politically-charged ant farms). Another contemporary insect with permission from artist Hubert Duprat. collaborator is Hubert Duprat in France, who coaxes his immature caddisflies to construct their protective cases out of pearls, gemstones, and gold, and Kazuo Kadonaga in Japan, who looks to ancient sericulture methods when orchestrating moth larvae to produce large-scale works of silk.

Cornelia Hesse-Honegger is a Swiss artist who was compelled to explore the mutagenic effects of nuclear power plants and Agent Orange by first illustrating drosophilid flies purposefully poisoned with mutagens at her work place. Her realistic depictions of asymmetrical insects are simultaneously pieces of art, promotions of environmental awareness, and tools for education. Also motivated by education, the Italian exhibit maker Lorenzo Possenti creates gargantuan three-dimensional insects for natural history museums, exceeding the quality displayed by some of museums’ great historical insect exhibits. The media have changed, but Possenti carries on a grand tradition of display-making realism. Bill Logan is another champion of three-dimensional