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Art that waxes beautiful
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March 5, 2003
When Mark Winston steps into the exhibit now on display at Simon Fraser University’s Burnaby campus gallery he is transported to another world. It is a world where ordinary items, such as shoes, take on an ethereal beauty that speaks to the SFU bee expert’s love of how bees wax beautiful in the wild. "It’s a very moving experience for anyone involved with bees to look into a hollow log containing a honey bee nest and see how the bees have wrapped wax around everything. The smell of honeycomb and the sight of wax-entombed objects in Aganetha’s exhibit take me back to my work with feral (wild) honey bees," says Winston who works primarily with domestic bees now.
In the display, Inter Species Communication Attempt, Aganetha Dyck’s honeycombed objects of art can appear delightfully lacey and grotesquely mummified. Their look was achieved by inserting ordinary objects, such as a pair of shoes, into hives where bees spun their golden wax around them at will. The two-person exhibit includes metaphysical-looking images of bees in flight, obtained from a scanner Dyck’s son Richard placed in a hive.
Ten years ago, when Winston first saw Dyck’s work at the Vancouver Art Gallery he was inspired to seek her out at her Winnipeg studio. The opportunity arose two years ago and their rendezvous resulted in a classic meeting of the minds. Their meeting at her studio solidified a mutual desire to collaborate on projects that would show Dyck how science could improve her art. In the winter of 2003, Dyck took Winston’s one-week intensive course for advanced beekeepers at SFU. "Observing the bees and their many parts through powerful microscopes, following students around and learning more about beeswax led me to see bees and their processes in a new way. My art will never be the same!" exclaims Dyck, who learned from Winston how to use bee pheromones as a tool to shape honeycombed patterns.
Dyck’s show continues at Burnaby campus until March 14. Her collaborative work with Winston is the subject of an independent documentary film currently in the making.
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electronic photo file available
Contact
Mark Winston, 604,291.4459, mark_winston@sfu.ca
Aganetha Dyck, 204.956.2997, ahtenaga@shaw.ca
Carol Thorbes, Media & PR, 604.291.3035; carol_thorbes@sfu.ca
In the display, Inter Species Communication Attempt, Aganetha Dyck’s honeycombed objects of art can appear delightfully lacey and grotesquely mummified. Their look was achieved by inserting ordinary objects, such as a pair of shoes, into hives where bees spun their golden wax around them at will. The two-person exhibit includes metaphysical-looking images of bees in flight, obtained from a scanner Dyck’s son Richard placed in a hive.
Ten years ago, when Winston first saw Dyck’s work at the Vancouver Art Gallery he was inspired to seek her out at her Winnipeg studio. The opportunity arose two years ago and their rendezvous resulted in a classic meeting of the minds. Their meeting at her studio solidified a mutual desire to collaborate on projects that would show Dyck how science could improve her art. In the winter of 2003, Dyck took Winston’s one-week intensive course for advanced beekeepers at SFU. "Observing the bees and their many parts through powerful microscopes, following students around and learning more about beeswax led me to see bees and their processes in a new way. My art will never be the same!" exclaims Dyck, who learned from Winston how to use bee pheromones as a tool to shape honeycombed patterns.
Dyck’s show continues at Burnaby campus until March 14. Her collaborative work with Winston is the subject of an independent documentary film currently in the making.
—30—
electronic photo file available
Contact
Mark Winston, 604,291.4459, mark_winston@sfu.ca
Aganetha Dyck, 204.956.2997, ahtenaga@shaw.ca
Carol Thorbes, Media & PR, 604.291.3035; carol_thorbes@sfu.ca