"Signal"

By Bethany Krull

Through July 26

Genesee Center for the Arts and Education

713 Monroe Avenue

271-5183, www.geneseearts.org

Monday-Friday 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Saturday noon-4 p.m.

We too-often consider the nuances of nature to be nothing but a nuisance. They strike terror in some; to others they are merely annoying. To nearly everyone, they are highly disposable. But insects play a vital role in the nearly invisible cycles that we unconsciously depend upon every day. Thanks to the recent mystery disappearance of the bees, and in no small way Al Gore's aggressive environmental crusade, ecological concerns are finally becoming widespread, and are showing up in the work of sensitive creators with more frequency. Alarm for the state of our planet (or rather, its continued ability to sustain our lifestyle) has never been greater. Two continuous sources of artistic inspiration are the beauty found in nature, and the socio-cultural climate. These concepts are blended in the work of sculptor Bethany Krull, showing this month at the Genesee Center for the Arts and Education.

Krull's insect exhibition consists of enormous dead bugs (most would fit snugly in the palm of your hand, others are infant-sized), including beetles, spiders, bees, cicadas, and more. Constructed of hand-built porcelain or cast-slip clay, some of the critters are textured, others entirely smooth, and most are installed on a thin bed of cracked, unfired slip that resembles parched earth. Bereft of color, they bring to mind the sun-bleached bones found in the desert.

When not languishing on the dry land, they are climbing the walls, as in "Swarm." Here, 23 cicadas hook themselves to a convex corner of the wall, their alien-orb eyes eerily staring as they patiently wait to emerge. Krull created some of the locusts with slits in down their backs, indicating that the former inhabitants have flown free.

Many of the bugs are solitary, like the mammoth "Wasp," with its thorn of a stinger, on its back and its legs in a permanent cringe, as we often find them on windowsills or baking under the rear window of cars. I hate that feeling, of knowing it got trapped and spent its last hours confused and panicked.

Others are grouped in swarms and depicted as living. One such assemblage is "Found," where 11 "live" beetles with a shiny, colorless glaze on their shells, cautiously approach a capsized fellow, lying on the boat of his back. Somehow, a sense of startled emotion is conveyed here.

Another group, entitled "Beginning," consists of dozens of cocoons, each suspended on its own string at varying heights from a wooden disc, and shows off the variety of forms a chrysalis can take. Viewers were attracted en masse, moth like, to this metamorphic chandelier.

Among my favorite pieces are "Hercules," a cleverly named and forlornly departed rhinoceros beetle, and the "Specimen" series, each hung on the wall like a pinned bug in some entomologist's lab, or natural history museum. Of this group, most interesting is the "larval" specimen, which in its simplicity and pattern looks just like an art deco motif.

In the provided artist statement, Krull explains that she "aims to examine and reveal not only the sheer formal and aesthetic beauty inherent in nature but also, our own species' 'ideas of nature' and the consequences that result from these ideas." She accomplishes this with a sympathetic hand -- with fascinating attention to the miniscule features, the artist lovingly crafted the creatures with exquisite detail, showing off the miraculous form and function of the exoskeleton, the segmented legs, and even mandibles, all without making the viewer cringe at the alien-ness of insect anatomy.

I even found myself captivated by the structure of the centipede, and anyone who knows me well could have fun describing my absolute shrieking horror elicited by chance sighting of one of the scurrying beasties. I love bees, spiders and I are cool (and I say this with, oh, 12 current bites from ankle to arse). Eight legs is so my limit.

In choosing to enlarge the bugs in her work, Krull throws into question our ideas of scale and importance. Size matters, and we are all ego. Humans place too little value on the small, hard-working beings of the world. The artist also uses insects to examine the simultaneous fragility and hardiness of nature's balance. For such tiny things, they are pretty resilient. We all know about the cockroach's endurance. But about those honeybees...

The title of the show comes from the artist's apprehension of dead bugs as "signals of a much greater environmental destruction and crisis. The insect is so important to the ecological balance that without it, humanity could probably not last more than a few months, and yet, as a society we are generally unaware of the essential functions of those creatures." At our current rate, we'll surely pay for our detachment. On the large scale, we need to start paying attention to the scientists and stop being so selfish. On the small scale, just think twice before using that can of Raid, m'kay?