Exhibition Info
FLYING COLOURS
Flying Colours features the stunning macro photography of artist Robert Chelmick. Twelve close-up shots of butterfly wings depict textures the naked eye cannot see and the abstractions result in dynamic and artful images reminiscent of feathers, eyes, leaves and cacti, landscapes and even topographical maps.
From the time photography was invented in the mid-1800s, scientists and artists have been incorporating it in their work and experimenting with its potential. Macro photography has been an especially appealing discipline because it produces highly magnified images which permit the extremely close study of insects, plants and other living creatures. It was first described in 1909 in Nature through Microscope and Camera by Richard Kerr, a volume which was marketed as an aide to students of biology and medicine. The book features a form of macro photography called photomicrography in which close-ups are captured by attaching a microscope to a camera. In the introduction, a pathologist, Dr. G. Sims Woodhead, explains that seeing photomicrographic images for the first time alters one's perspective of the world ever after:
"Those who have once attempted to catch a glimpse of the wonderful secrets that Nature will unveil to the earnest and discreet searcher can never again look upon things as common or of little importance because they do not display to the eye of the superficial observer the beauties that lie hidden under an unattractive appearance or are shrouded in size so minute that the ordinary eye is incapable of discerning their exquisite plan and detail."
The butterfly, in all its beauty and variety, has been a popular subject in art for millennia and since the time of the classical Greeks, has stood as a symbol of grace, femininity and soul in western culture. But the butterfly is an arbitrary element in Chelmick's work. By its anatomy in detail through a macro lens and by cropping his compositions, the artist extrapolates the image from its origins and removes any meaning associated with it. His approach to the beautiful winged creature is purely subjective.
Instead of relating to traditional themes and symbolism, the photographs relate to ecology, to the interconnectedness of life and the environment. They illustrate how patterns and designs repeat themselves in nature and how, upon close inspection, they resemble each other even though the species they belong to do not. Papilio Demodocus No. 1, for example, looks like a feather. The delicate vertical fibres imitate the striations of a feather and the scales look like a feather's barbs. Feathers and wings have similar biological functions aiding flight and bearing defensive markings and through the macro lens, they appear to be very similar. Chelmick's images prompt the viewer to make these leaps of thought and connect life forms to each other.
Some of the images are evocative of landscapes from a bird's-eye view while others resemble plant life or even inanimate objects. Euthalia calls to mind undulating prairie fields delineated by fences and sand dunes shaped by wind. Carabus Morbillosus, which is not a butterfly but a beetle, looks like a succulent or a garden vegetable and Cithaerias Aurorina No. 2 conjures up notions of cherry blossoms. The folds in Nessaea Obrinus resemble the draping folds of a radiant gown and Salamis Duprei looks like a swatch of delicate fabric floating on the air.
Gazing at the photographs in Flying Colours is a bit like searching for shapes in the clouds because interpretation is rooted in what is familiar to the individual. But in spite of the limitless connections they prompt, every viewer will agree the elegant images are irrefutable evidence of the brilliance and unity in nature's design.
Flying Colours was curated by Caroline Loewen & Shannon Bingeman, Alberta Society of Artists, Region 3 of the AFA Travelling Exhibition Program (TREX).
