This Lotusland exhibition, curated by Nancy Gifford, celebrates bees with a provocative display of artistic interpretations of bees and hive culture.
It includes 2-dimensional contemporary art, sculpture, dance and film created by several artists, both local and further afield.
Penelope Stewart has created a bas relief beeswax “beescape” with designs inspired by plants at Lotusland.
Los Angeles-based photographer Rose-Lynn Fisher takes highly magnified black and white photos of bees and bee parts through a scanning electron microscope.
Ethan Turpin and Jonathan Smith have built a six-sided room within a room where images of bees will be projected on walls of cloth screens so visitors feel as though they are walking into a bee cell.
Selections from Stephanie Wilde’s ongoing body of work, “The Golden Bees,” created in response to the recent, unexplained disappearance of the Western Honeybee, will be on view as will works by Theresa Carter, Bill Dewey, Ed Inks, Cynthia James, Casey Lurie, Keith Puccinelli, Maria Rendon and Anna Vaughan. Some of the pieces will be for sale, with a portion of proceeds going to Lotusland.
Lotusland is a public charity that preserves and enhances the collection of exotic plants and the historic Montecito, California estate of Madame Ganna Walska. The Swarm exhibition is open free to members and $35 to non members. Admission for both members and non members is by reservation only. To learn more about Lotusland, visit their website.