Opening Reception for the Artists
Fourth Friday, March 27, 2015
7:00-10:00 pm
Free and Open to the Public
Closing Artist Talk
Sunday, April 19, 2015
2:00 pm
Free and Open to the Public
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March 27 - April 19, 2015
Brood Chambers
Susanne K. Arnold
Mixed media sculpture
Helena Davis Gallery
Artist's Statement
For many years now I have been making mixed media objects out of beeswax and salvaged discards from my garden and neighborhood as a means to push the boundaries of my creative ideas, encaustic medium and process.
My current bee "brood chamber" series, constructed from layers of fragile organic material, beeswax and encaustic, symbolizes the conflict I see taking place between nature and civilization and my concern for our fragile environment. Specifically, the brood chambers serve as memento mori for the honey bee "colony collapse syndrome," that threatens our food supply world-wide. The beautiful and solitary nests of the Osmia avoseta bees are the inspiration for my brood chambers. My chambers are empty, signifying both the missing honey bees and hope that the O. avoseta bees can bring regeneration.
My head has always been crowded with ideas and images, both ancient and contemporary. But it is my physical connection to my materials, and to nature itself, that gives voice and commentary to these objects about loss, transformation and renewal.
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Shakespeare, The Tempest
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