Brent Dedas / South Carolina
General Description:
This project is a collaboration with living honeybees (and in some images dead honeybees), resulting in large works on paper. The images are life size contact prints made in the sun (not from a digital negative). Incorporating aspects of printmaking, photography and drawing these images were made using organic components and the presence of honeybees. Each blueprint is a record of light, time and labor. In the fleeting moments that pass during exposure, bees move and vibrate. This movement causes the bees to appear as little ghosts, or soft glowing orbs of light. Their presence is recorded over long exposures.
Many bees huddled together form large beautiful organic shapes. The bees represent the majority of the white (highlight) areas within these works. Honeybees are in no way harmed by this project.
Bio:
Growing up in a working-class blue-collar southern family has greatly influenced my artistic themes. Being on and around construction sites, as a child and through adulthood, influenced my concepts of building and destroying. Years later these ideas have led to a focus on the “worker bees”.
The bees both create the image while destroying and feeding upon it. In the fleeting moments that pass during exposure, bees move and vibrate. This movement causes the bees to appear as little ghosts, or soft glowing orbs of light.
Cosmic Light of Ra / 45 in tall x 76 wide
Many bees swarming together form large beautiful organic shapes. The bees represent the majority of the white (highlight) areas within these works. Honeybees are in no way harmed by this project. They come and go freely without any contact with the cyanotype process. The cyanotype process employed here is the same one which was developed in 1842.
Red Cross Blue Print / Each image is 22 x 22 in
Image description:
My grandfather was a medic in world war II. Honeybees carry their dead to the front of the hive as a ritual within their life cycle. These two concepts inform this installation of works on paper. Each red cross image is made up of many dead honeybees and salt. The bees were donated to my project by local beekeepers
Detail image from the Red Cross Blue Print Installation
Cosmic and Quiet / 30 x 44 in
Living honeybees and organic components - double exposure.
Sfumato No. 332 / 45 x 38 in
Sfumato No. 322 / 45 x 38 in
Process shot and scale reference