Transformation Vessels (Cocoons)
Last week, (06.17.09), the Globe reviewed WOWbug and Other Micro-Natures, currently on exhibit at Khaki Gallery. Here's what they had to say about our work:
Tiny, striking patterns
"WOWbug & Other Micro-Natures" is a fun, eye-popping, up-close examination of tiny critters at Khaki Gallery. The artists Angela Devenney and Jennifer Formica (whose last name, aptly, is the Latin word for ant) use scanners to magnify images of insects, among other things.
For "Moth Wings Study #6," Formica laid a heap of wings on the scanner. The result is a composition of dramatic, swooping lines, often with feathery fringes, glorious tones, and absorbing patterns. Something about her "Drosophila," a glowing blur of a fly with wings folded in and head tucked, looks eerily like a fetal ultrasound. "Lily Ovulary Megasporocyte" shows a single cell blown up against a black ground in a spectacle of yellow and green, blotted with electric purples.
Devenney makes little assemblages and scans them. Her assortments of strings and bugs come across as too precious, but when she sticks to one material, as in "Flies: Passion," a star form made of a small army of flies, the result is all at once formally precise, creepy, and funny.
