"Blue Butterflies"

2011

I created the "Blue Butterflies"  series while filming in the Cockrell Butterfly Center at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. The Center displayed a case of butterfly cocoons dangling from thin cords attached to pins inserted into a foam board inside a large glass vitrine. I was fascinated by the jewel-like colors and live metamorphosis of the insects. Additionally, I was concerned for their wellbeing in our culture that overlooks these insects who pollinate our food supply. Butterflies will become extinct if we continue to poison their resources. By inverting the color of the Monarch butterfly, I thought it resembled the colors of a Ming vase, which if these creatures go extinct, they will be as rare and precious as the celebrated vessels. I digitally isolated the creatures from their backgrounds, elongated the original cord used to attach the cocoon, added shadows as though hanging on to a long cord. 

The work was part of an exhibition I titled, "Hanging by a Thread," for which I received a Houston Arts Alliance Individual Artist Grant in 2011.

.Sizes Available 

30 x 30 in., archival inkjet prints, edition of 5 with 2 Artist Proofs 

20 x 20 in., archival inkjet prints, edition of 8 with 1 Artist Proof

Above: Blue Butterfly  30 in x 30 in archival inkjet print