The Fragile Bee: Works by Nancy Macko
About the Exhibition
Nancy Macko’s exhibition, The Fragile Bee, is an outcry to realize the plight of the bees in relationship to the environment and our interdependent relationship to them. She looks closely at the world of bees, not only to examine their biology and somatic features, but also to study their habitat and highly organized society.
The installation is comprised of several significant works. Honey Teachings: In the Mother Tongue of the Bees, 2014, is composed of 104 hexagonal wooden panels displaying bee imagery, mixed media materials and phrases, such as: “Worker bees are born to serve the greater good” and “Bees nurture the cycle of life.” Clustered together the individual panels look very much like a hive, emphasizing the implicit message of the project. Also included is an earlier multi-paneled work, The Honeycomb Wall, 1994, comprised of 92 hexagonal panels that include mixed media, printmaking, digital images, and vinyl phrases like, “Did you know worker bees are female?” While Honey Teachings is an outcry to the plight of the bees, The Honeycomb Wall celebrates the magic and beauty of the hive and its intrinsic similarity to a feminist utopia.
A suite of lithographs, The First Ten Prime Numbers, re-create hive clusters represented by small circular rings. This imagery is derived from her work with the honeybees and references the hive with the explicit intention of rendering each of the first ten prime numbers as a developing cluster, constellation, cell or hive.
The Botanical Portraits series (SoCal and MileHigh) are remarkable visions of the hidden intimacies of nature’s cycle of life, death and renewal as each portrait of a native, bee-attracting plant reveals its stages of life at a close range. while her bee imagery is both beautiful and indicative of a larger purpose. Each portrait examines the flora the bees draw nourishment from and so carefully attend through the process of pollination.
In this exhibition Macko’s basic fascination with the form of the hexagon prevails as she examines the life cycle of all things as a personal, social and universal experience. She says, “The simplest thing everyone can do to help the bees is to plant wildflowers because they provide the bees with the healthy nutrients they need to flourish and survive.”
Highlights