‘"Diana Dopson: Biota"’

"Diana Dopson: Biota": The Secret Life of Insects

Women & Their Work Gallery, through Sept. 6

When you think of bugs, do you immediately think "delicate"? How about "jewellike," "otherworldly," or "exquisite"? Neither do I, generally. Yet these words sprang to my mind at "Biota," Women & Their Work's current exhibit of color-photo boxes by Diana Dopson. Her insect images, flanked in jointed triptychs by photos of their native flora and thinly coated with beeswax, are light-drenched delicacies for the eyes, and Dopson draws out the bugs' beauty in unusual ways. But through the pictures, the artist also murmurs her concern for the loss of these precious species and nudges our perception of insects from the pestilential to the subtly reverential.

Dopson uses sharpness and blurriness in the same way that many black-and-white photographers employ shadow and light, as a sort of focal chiaroscuro that not only directs the viewer's eye but also suggests specific interpretations. In one box, she brings into surgical clarity the point at which a pin cruelly impales a green tiger beetle, while leaving the surrounding beetles out of focus -- a static herd heading away from the viewer. In many other images, the pinned insects are in clear focus, but the photos of flowers on either side are an impressionistic blur. Dopson writes that this use of focus suggests "how [insects'] vision differ[s] from the much more limited vision of humans," and this is certainly true. But her focus on the bugs' pierced bodies also brings their lifelessness to the forefront, giving voice to the artist's concern that, in our haste to eradicate "pests," we're damning many beautiful and valuable species to extinction.

Perhaps most striking is the reverence that emanates from these photos. Their beeswax patina enhances this luminous quality, and the boxes are directly reminiscent of the folding religious-icon triptychs of the Byzantine era. But it's the flowers and grasses framing the insect images that somehow do the most to create this sense of quiet respect. In pieces like Cabinet 23, depicting Cuckoo wasps flanked by blurred wildflowers, the flowers look like they are standing graveside, mourning the loss of their hard-shelled visitors, or perhaps are a dim insect memory strewn in the wake of their departure from this world. There's something soft and solemn about these photos, as if the flowers are momentarily holding their breath.

Through the beauty and craft of Dopson's work, one is led to an unexpected pathos for these so-called pests; her passion for the rarely admired species she depicts transfers to the viewer. These strange and beautiful boxes offer a fresh perspective on the creatures whose lives often begin, continue, and end out of our focus and under our feet.