Patricia Pinsk - Artist and writer
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Patricia Pinsk - Blog

Artist and freelance writer

What the buzz - honeybee-commissioned art?

3/26/2015

 
Bees are multi-talented, hard workers. They exhaustively work all day satisfying their Queen bee. They keep us humans alive by pollinating the crops for the food we eat. AND they create art for exhibition purposes (for example, MOMA). 
Honeybees © Patricia Pinsk
Honeybees ~~ © Patricia Pinsk
Bees provide inspiration to numerous illustrators, and creators-alike. Bee-generated art has been around for a while. Artists such as Aganetha Dyck, Ren Ri, and Tomáš Gabzdil Libertíny  use bees to create installation art and sculpture.

Since bees have the ability to 3-D print honeycomb in any shape possible, these artists orchestrate the bees to create life-sized sculptures of anything from clothing to the human form. They place various shapes within a “hive” and wait for the bees to do their work.

Most of the objects placed in the hives are “ready-made” everyday objects. The bees then create a honeycomb shape around the “ready-mades”. The result is fantastic, and smells amazing (I experienced one of Aganetha’s show years ago).


But is it art?

This is a common question asked in the art and illustration world - one that raises many other questions. Art-making processes are constantly in a state of flux. If something is created by a machine or an insect versus just a human hand is it art? If the art is about process versus end product – is it still art? What is of greater value - the art or the artist statement (artist’s ideas)?

Children’s books are all about ideas. Like the sculpture and installation art world, some published books push the boundaries as to what is a story. There is B.j. Novak’s book The Book With No Pictures - that is pure silliness and delight. As the title suggests, there are no pictures in the book, just a lot of very silly text. It guarantees to entertain and bring a smile to everyone’s face.

At the other end of the spectrum there are picture books without words such as Molly Idle’s Flora and the Flamingo (video demo). This book is beautifully illustrated, and it tells a story of a girl and her friend – purely without words.

It seems to me as far as the arts go – the great stuff entertains us or makes us think. It starts conversations. How it’s created shouldn’t matter. It’s also nice to know that a group of bees can get a major exhibit in an art gallery – if they could only learn to write!


This week's illustration is in celebration of all the bees that have been lucky enough to make it into a major gallery show. It is in ink and digital.

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  • About
  • Portfolio
    • Abstract art
    • Editorial illustration
    • Children's illustration >
      • B&W children's illustration
    • Writing
  • Blog
  • Contact