The Art of the Butterfly #5 -- Rob Craigie

Below are Rob Craigie's Butterflies from
A Painting Collection, 2007 and 2008
Volume 1, 2008. All images are oil
paint on sized paper.


Butterfly #11



Butterfly #37


Butterfly #16

The Sign of the Butterfly in Art

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

When physical movement is lost, the imagination

takes flight traversing the past and the present.

Jean Dominique Bauby, the editor-in-chief of Elle, had

a cardio vascular stroke which left him paralyzed from

head to toe. His diagnosis was “locked in syndrome.”

The only movement he had was the ability to blink his

left eye. Through the process of blinking to the letters

recited by a transcriber, he was able to narrate his book

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

Bauby’s book was made into a film in 2007 by director

Julian Schnabel. The film considers the limitations of

the boundary of our skin and the impulse to

communicate beyond those limitations. Sophocles

notion of the butterfly as Psyche or soul is rendered

nearly tangible in this film. Bauby, and then Schnabel,

address the strength of the mind and the

power of the imagination.

We see images of fluttering butterflies only once in the

film. Yet time and again we feel the essence of the

creature through representation of weightlessness,

freedom and hope. These sensations succinctly

counteract being pulled under water, sinking while

confined within the physical limitations of the diving bell.

Bauby, whose story had become popular in Europe, had

turned a negative event into something positive. It has

come to personify a transcendence and power of

consciousness, all of which is a challenge to depict in

film, yet has been successfully accomplished.

Schnabel won best director of the year at the Cannes Film

Festival. The film was nominated in several categories at

the 80^th Academy Awards. Ronald Harwood won the Adapted

Screenplay category at the British Academy of Film &

Television Arts in 2007. The film garnered two Golden Globe

awards.

The Art of the Butterfly #4 -- Binh Danh: Part 2

Check out the video on Binh Danh's creation of
chlorophyll prints.

http://kqed02.streamguys.us/anon.kqed/spark/binhdanh.
m4v

If this link does not work, try the link below or plug it into
Google. It will take you to the SPARK page and an article
on him. Click on the video.

Binh Danh: Spark | KQED Public Media for Northern CA

Posted using ShareThis

The Art of the Butterfly #4 -- Binh Danh

The Leaf Effect: Study for Metamorphosis #6,
Binh Danh, 2006. Chlorophyll print, butterfly
specimen and resin.


The Leaf Effect: Study for Metamorphosis #5,
Binh Danh, 2006. Chlorophyll print, butterfly
specimen and resin.


The Leaf Effect: Study for Metamorphosis #1,
Binh Danh, 2006. Chlorophyll print, butterfly
specimen and resin.


Ancestral Altar #20, Binh Danh, 2006.
Chlorophyll print, butterfly specimen and resin.


Iridescence of life #7, Binh Danh, 2008.
Chlorophyll print, butterfly specimen & resin.


Iridescence of life #9, Binh Danh, 2008.
Chlorophyll print, butterfly specimen & resin.

Binh Danh’s imagery addresses the continuum of the Vietnamese-American War

and how the residue of the

war still resides within the

Vietnamese landscape.

The images are reminiscent of early photography and the photogenic botanicals of

William Henry Fox Talbot.

"It's almost my religious practice when I make my own

artwork because I'm coming up with my own concept

about what is life, what is death, what is consciousness,

what is history."
--Binh Danh

The Art of the Butterfly #3

Cithaerias pyropina (Pyropine Ghost Satyr),
Linda Broadfoot, 2002, Hand manipulated
20x24 Polaroid image transfer on Fabriano
paper 30" x 22."

For more info on Linda Broadfoot
go to: http://www.florida-arts.org/
grants/fellowship/displayfellow.cfm?
id=176

The Art of the Butterfly #2

Black Winged Butterfly Lady, Jayne Hinds Bidaut, 1999. Tintype.

The Art of the Butterfly

Untitled, Adam Fuss, 2009. Dageurrotype