Happenings

INsects INsectos

Gallery Exhibition

Dates:

June 26 through August 6, 2008

Opening Reception:

Thursday, June 26, 2008, 7:00 to 9:00 pm

Location:

3245 16th Street (at Guerrero Street)
San Francisco, CA 94103

Creativity Explored may be crawling with bugs this summer, but you can leave the Raid at home. The colorful critters in the gallery are part of a new sculptural exhibition that celebrates the naturally weird and wild world of bugs.

Artist Nubia Ortega’s over-sized swarm of painted wood bees was inspired by a specific memory of her childhood in El Salvador. “I always saw bees flying around the plants and flowers,” she says. “I remember an old mango lying on the ground and when I got near it, so many bees flew up and away.”

Also driven by memories of home, artist Abel Pineda contributes several painted Monarch butterflies that begin their annual migration in his home country of Mexico. Pineda’s work has always been filled with the flora and fauna of home, says curator and Creativity Explored instructor Gloria Morales. “In Latin America where I also grew up, children in rural areas catch insects to play with them,” she says. “We have a different relationship with them there. I think that is why insects show up in the artwork of so many of our Latino artists. They appreciate them.”

The exhibition also features a pesky trail of giant multi-colored, papier mache’ ants, a wall full of wacky beetles, a creative rendition of the Aesop fable of the grasshopper and the ant, as well as a whole menagerie of imaginative dragonflies, wasps, locusts, and more.

artwork: Emma Reyes and Pablo Calderon ©2008/CE

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