Review
CHROMAPLAY
Clint Wilson
Runs until November 13
The New Gallery
(516D Ninth Ave. S.W.)
Stay near me – do not take thy flight! A little longer stay in sight!
Much converse do I find in thee, Historian of my infancy!
Float near me; do not yet depart! Dead times revive in thee:
Thou bring'st, gay creature as thou art! A solemn image to my heart
Wordsworth said it and now Edmonton-based artist Clint Wilson is attempting to show how butterflies can carry meaning well beyond their intrinsic beauty in an exhibition entitled Chromaplay, now on at The New Gallery.
Using various presentations of Ascia Bunae butterflies, a sub-species of the Pieridae family, Wilson projects all of his angst and ruminations about the use of technology onto the wings of this tiny creature.
Although the premise of the exhibition veers dangerously near the turf of artist-as-preacher, Wilson avoids it by providing installations that are visually interesting and free of any text that would compromise his "butterfly effect."
"I’m not changing the world with this stuff," he says.
Wilson’s interest in butterflies grew from observing his then two-year-old daughter who was "interested in small things." A decade later, the full-time preparator at the Edmonton Art Gallery and part-time artist looks past his daughter’s fascination with the insect world to critique a culture that seems intent on manipulating nature in order to wring from it what it needs or wants.
The first part of Chromaplay is a wall studded with 55 of the common Peruvian butterflies that Wilson purchases from a bulk wholesaler in Toronto. Using translucent overlays, each with a digital image of a national flag placed on it, Wilson places them over each butterfly to create a wall filled with insects with dramatically altered appearances. The colours from the flags of the world projected onto these fragile creatures remind us, suggests Wilson, that the globe is a place filled with people who re-engineer nature for ill-conceived reasons.
Of course, such thinking also suggests that technology inspired by nature is somehow suspect– a thesis that’s short-sighted and naive. The field of biomimetics – "the study of the formation, structure, or function of biologically produced substances and materials (as enzymes or silk) and biological mechanisms and processes (as protein synthesis or photosynthesis), especially for the purpose of synthesizing similar products by artificial mechanisms which mimic natural ones" (to quote the Merriam Webster dictionary), is an example. Velcro, airplane wings and a whole host of inventions and ideas that have their origins firmly rooted in nature are embraced by all except the most ardent Luddites.
That said, on consideration, Wilson’s use of butterflies as the vehicle for his creative expression has artistic merit. Further inside the gallery, he continues to juxtapose butterflies against technology to present what he describes as "contrived ecosystems."
Placed on two large, high-definition television antennas are more butterflies that are reanimated through the use of tiny motors that the artist picks up at a surplus store. The effect it produces is a display of dead bugs that fly once more over the wasteland of what Clint Wilson must imagine is the state of our world.
Whether you agree with Wilson’s premise or not, Chromaplay is an interesting experience that makes a flutter over to The New Gallery worth the trip. |
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