Artist Terry Arena inside her installation; gallerist Kristine Schomaker outside.
Yes, Shoebox Project’s The Closet is a small space. But then, Terry Arena’s amazingly detailed renderings of bees are tiny, too. In short: it’s a perfect hive-like space for her current graceful and moving installation “Indicator Species.” The installation is up through April 14th.
As with other work of Arena’s since 2014, detailed renderings of bees – inspired by her research on colony collapse disorder and its environmental crisis – is her subject. With this specific work, while her meticulous drawing is also on display, so too are repetitive linked metal patterns based on binary code that shimmer with silvery light.
Arena has created other iterations of work in this series, Symbiotic Crisis, dealing with the plight of the bees and the effects wrought on the environment and society. The first three were shown in the back of a box truck referencing the transporting of the bees nationwide to pollinate crops.
Arena draws her images on prepared metal surfaces with graphite. Bees are not her only subjects; however, Arena’s dedication to ecology often focuses on them, offering us glimpses of her intricate depictions through a monocle as beautiful, circular miniatures; larger images of pollinating bees; fallen bees; and bee honeycomb architecture. Poignant and richly detailed, her drawings – and here her sculptural work – is unique and intimate, creating a connection with viewers and seemingly with nature itself that is immediate.
Fragile and special, in this installation we are invited to literally step inside the bees’ world, stand in the Closet, take a moment among those delicate silver suspended threads, look up at her image, and absorb the gift of bees abuzz in the world – and hope to save that gift for future generations.
Shoebox Projects is located in DTLA at The Brewery Complex in Lincoln Heights.
- Genie Davis; Photos: Genie Davis
Thank you so much, Genie!