Lost Wax
In Lost Wax, I used the ancient lost-wax casting technique to transform beeswax into solid bronze. The delicate honeycomb melts out of a mold, leaving an empty void into which molten metal is poured. The bronze hardens into an exact replica of the original, retaining the indexical information and physical impressions. In a contemporary context I use this process to document, like a photograph or a fossil, fleeting moments in time. Archiving that which is lost, the memory is preserved to live on and converse with the future.
Interpreting the future to enlighten the present of the past, the Oracle at Delphi was often represented as a bee in ancient Greece, a symbol of impending fate. Today, as our world transforms before our very eyes due to changing climate, the decline of the honeybee may be regarded as the proverbial canary in the coal mine for imminent shifts in our global ecosystems and the sustainability of life within them. Lost Wax is my attempt to memorialize and immortalize the ephemeral wisdom of bees.
