butterflies

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Art Craft

Miniature Ships Sail Atop Asya Kozina’s Extravagant Baroque Wigs of White Paper

Artist Asya Kozina is known for her elaborate paper wigs that soar into the air with scenes of miniature metropolises and various botanical frills, coils, and pleats. Referencing the ominous tale of the Flying Dutchman, Kozina’s latest collection transports wearers to the sea with fleets of ships that sail across the cut-and-folded headdresses. The legend states that seeing the vessel portends imminent danger, a sense of mystery and hazard the artist juxtaposes with blossoming botanicals and butterflies full of life.

Kozina is based in Ukraine, and in a note to Colossal, she shares that Russia’s ongoing aggression has necessarily paused her practice as she focuses on volunteer efforts and caring for her family.  “We are in a state of more or less stress,” she says. “My attention is focused on air alarms and news and correspondence with relatives in other cities of Ukraine. At the same time, we pretend that we have a normal life… It’s completely surreal.”

You can find more about Kozina’s work and support her practice on her site, Behance,and Instagram.

 

Art Craft

Delicate Stained Glass Butterflies and Moths Flit and Flutter with Illuminated Colors

From her home studio in the Netherlands, artist Melanie solders vivid stained glass renditions of monarchs, peacock butterflies, and Spanish moon moths. She first scours etymological sources for information on colors, vein placements, and antennae, then sketches a pattern for tracing and cutting the fragile material and pieces together the delicate specimens. Like their real-life counterparts, the creatures are delicate and lively, although these cast vibrant reflected light around the spaces they inhabit. Follow the artist’s growing swarm of bees and butterflies on Instagram.

 

Art

Leaves, Insects, and Human Anatomy Converge in Delicate Pencil Drawings by Amahi Mori

Through veins and hybridized beings, Japanese artist Amahi Mori connects life across the plant and animal kingdoms. Various circulatory systems blend together in seamless compositions with leafy greens emerging from a blue morpho or cloaking an elongated human hand. Rendered in graphite, colored pencil, and watercolor, Amahi’s delicate works center on the vibrancy of life conveyed through brilliantly patterned wings and supple leaves. Many of the drawings are also tinged with the otherworldly and surreal, particularly as human skin stretches to account for a growing stem.

Amahi has a solo exhibition slated for this May at Ginza Getsukoso Gallery. Until then, find an archive of her fused creatures on her site and Instagram.

 

Art Craft

Vivid Hues and Intricate Embroidery Bring Yumi Okita’s Remarkably Tactile Moths to Life

In vividly colored thread and textiles, Yumi Okita imbues remarkably tactile moths and butterflies with lifelike features. The North Carolina-based artist designs each specimen to perch on its own delicate wire legs, and some of the larger creatures boast wing spans nearly 10 inches wide. Long fascinated by the natural world, she portrays the insects’ intricate detail, innate fragility, and sublime patterns in embroidery thread, faux fur, feathers, and layers of dyed fabric.

Okita often sells her sculptures in her Etsy shop and is currently exploring the theme of nature further in a series of botanical designs, which she has begun sharing on Instagram.

 

Photography Science

Photographer Levon Biss Illuminates the Strange, Otherworldly Chrysalises of Butterfly Pupae

A photographer known for using the macro to investigate the micro, Levon Biss (previously) continues his explorations into the vast world of entomology. His recent butterfly pupae series centers on “the diversity of design and form” through illuminating portraits of approximately 30 specimens as they undergo metamorphosis and complete the final, most vulnerable stage of the transition from adolescence to adulthood.

Otherworldly and bordering on the bizarre, many of the chrysalises have evolved to be deceptive in appearance, acting as necessary camouflage from potential predators by impersonating nearby plants and surroundings: some mimic the natural, like those that imitate a rotting plantain or mossy hunk of bark, while others are more artful, like those spotted with Kusama-esque dots or cloaked in a mirrored gold coating. The photographs are “intended to be both entertaining and educational,” Biss shares, “allowing the viewer to appreciate the diversity in the subject whilst appreciating the intricate details that evolution has created.”

Pick up a print of the unearthly images, and find more from the collection on Biss’s site and Instagram. If you’re in New York, you can also see his Extinct and Endangered series at the American Museum of Natural History.

 

Photography Science

In ‘Extinct and Endangered,’ Photographer Levon Biss Magnifies the Potential Loss of Insects Around the Globe

Despite existing on separate continents thousands of miles apart, the Madeira brimstone and giant Patagonian bumblebee are experiencing similar hardships. The former, which inhabits the islands it inherits its name from, is dealing with an invasive species decimating the trees its caterpillars require pre-metamorphosis, while the latter has been struggling to survive in its native Chile after farmers introduced domesticated European bees to aid in crop pollination. Both species are in danger and are part of an ongoing exhibition at the American Museum of Natural History conveying what’s at stake if their species are lost entirely.

Extinct and Endangered is comprised of massive, macro shots by Levon Biss, a British photographer who’s amassed a stunningly diverse collection of images with a variety of natural subject matter from dried seeds to iridescent insects. Biss often collaborates with institutions like the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and the Oxford Museum of Natural History, gaining access to their archives and selecting specimens. He then takes about 10,000 individual images using various lenses that are then stitched together to create extraordinarily detailed shots of beetles, moths, and butterflies.

 

From the American Museum of Natural History’s collection of more than 20 million, Biss chose just 40 creatures, some of which have already vanished. “To know an insect will never exist on this planet again, primarily because of human influence, is upsetting and emotional. And it’s humbling,” he told The New York Times. “As an artist, it’s the thing that drives me on to make that picture as good as it can be.”

Spanning up to eight feet, the photos are immense in scale and focused on each specimen’s striking forms, whether the undulating wings of the 17-year cicada or the intimidating tusk-like appendages of the lesser wasp moth. Biss hopes that Extinct and Endangered, which is on view through September 4, will raise awareness about the rapid decline in insect populations around the world. “I want people to be in awe of their beauty but to also be damn sad about why they’re being put in front of them,” he says.

Prints of the collection are available on Biss’s site, and you can explore an extensive archive of his works on Instagram.