The Rumination Beetle series

The Rumination Beetles are inspired by a visit to the Dutch and Flemish still life room at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford which feature insects like beetles and grasshoppers. Their meaning is ambiguous, though they have mythological and cultural symbolism in civilizations including Ancient Egypt, Greek, Chinese and Hindu & Buddhist Philosophy. They are often associated with reliance and adaptability and their exoskeletons symbolising strength and protection.

They inhabit this series, borrowing from Dutch still life and also Romantic era landscape painting, backdrops that have appeared in previous bodies of my work populated by subjects including the human fly, Frankenstein’s Monster and the Ford Escort van.

Their inference here is of resilience but also burying and storing personal feelings and ruminations, under their shells whilst moving through melancholic  and tumultuous environments.