DETAILS

Colony by Marcia Harris
Summit Gallery of Fine Art
Saturday, November 22 - Friday, December 19

More in: Visual Arts

How is it possible to examine the landscape we live in without also examining our relationship to it? In Marcia Harris’s new show, Colony, she explores one particular aspect of the landscape in more detail: the impact of honeybees on humans and the broader ecological landscape. What prompted this new interest is the growing concern behind Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) — a syndrome that affects worker bee populations in hives, leading to an eventual decline in population. Speculation on the causes of CCD range from concentrated use of pesticides and high incidences of genetically modified crops, to climate change stresses and, more recently, and controversially, cell phone radiation.

Harris aims to challenge traditional notions of landscape painting with hyperbolic photos of bees and honeycombs collaged into the broader landscape of the pieces. “Often we don’t even notice insects such as bees, or when we do, we are annoyed by them. I wanted to put them back into perspective as an essential part of the natural world and creation, as well as a necessary part of human reality,” says Harris. Representations of bee society aren’t always obvious in this body of work unless you’re really looking for them. Though the bee images are magnified, they blend into the landscape of the painting in a subdued way. “That’s mainly because I wanted to portray them as part of our contemporary landscape — ever-present even if they seem hidden,” says Harris. Paintings such as Shadow, Gold and Sun feature images of bees or honeycombs subtly layered into their surroundings.

Harris went on field excursions to gain greater insight into the complex society and intriguing life cycle of honeybees. Monarchy is rife with symbolism, with photos of gold jewelry collaged into the painting to represent the structure of bee society itself and to signify the treasure of the bee’s hive: honey. The painting also alludes to the inestimable value of bees’ activities for this planet. Disturbing Beauty and Swarm both present a fury of dynamic colour in the Jackson Pollack-style forms of trees, either surrounded by bees or simply pulsing with life.

Colony provides an interesting contrast to Harris’s previous exhibit, Redshift: Witnessing Landscape Change. The show features another insect, the pine beetle, which affects humans in an entirely different way. Whereas the unnaturally high populations of pine beetles are decimating forests in North America, the disappearance of honeybees results in significantly reduced pollination of plants and, in turn, food production. “If you think about it, without pollination, many species of plants that we rely on would not actually propagate, and without these plants, life as we know it would cease to exist,” says Harris. In both cases, shifts in populations of each species are affected in part by human activity.

The theme of the show is ecologically based, but Harris is not interested in preaching about the evils of human activity or industry. Rather, Colony seeks to foster a simple appreciation and awareness of the natural world in general and some of the smallest creatures in particular.