55th Anniversary Juried Member's Exhibit - 2023
- August 11, 2023
- Exhibition
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- Artwork
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- Artists
Beautiful Roaches
- Gouache on Recycled Paper
- Bonnie Koopmans
Cockroaches are gross, right?! Many people have only experienced the pest species – American and German cockroaches – which invade our homes in unpleasant ways. However, there are a vast array of gorgeous cockroach species that do NOT want to eat your takeaway leftovers. Jewel-like, delicate, chunky, spotty, these cockroaches trundle and scuttle through leaf litter, sleep under logs and burrow in the ground, well hidden from bug spray.
This artwork was created to increase awareness of Australia's diverse and beautiful cockroach species, and reduce some of the 'ick' factor. The Australian National Research Collections in Canberra are currently in the process of relocating to a new building. Subsequent shedding of unneeded materials in the collections provided me with a large stash of collection labels that were pulped and recycled into paper for a group show, titled Collected Works. Fragments of the labels are still visible in the surface of the paper.