Icarus

In the Greek myth of Icarus, hubris leads to catastrophic loss. This cause and effect formula underlies many of these works. In “Icarus”, hundreds of butterfly species, excerpted from a world encyclopedia of lepidoptera, have been collected like beautiful specimens and harnessed to each other in pursuit of an arrogant goal. The very act of traditional butterfly collecting negates their ability to fly; here, the delicate violence of stapling all these creatures' wings together denies the functionality of the result. Possession becomes Midas’ touch: what is extracted in excess from the natural world begets our downfall.