Aganetha Dyck: Beesness

Aganetha Dyck is a Canadian artist who is interested in environmental issues, specifically the power of the small. She is interested in inter species communication. Her research asks questions about the ramifications all living beings would experience should honeybees disappear from earth. Artist Aganetha Dyck doesn’t collaborate with other artists to create her gorgeous organic pieces – but instead she employs the help of bees! The Canadian artist has been working with honeybees to create incredible sculptures and drawings for over 20 years. The resulting pieces are swirling sculptural forms made up of honey comb, flat metal pieces worked over inside the hive, and even paper that bees have trekked across. The multi-media artist addresses language and communication, especially between humans and other species- namely bees. By working collaboratively with the bees, Dyck explores our relationship with them, and takes into account the bees’ use of their own senses. Each of her projects was designed to be affected by the bees’ sight, scent, vibration and movement. Visually, her work also takes on different hues, textures and formations based on the bees’ pheromones, the kinds of flowers they pollinate, and type of hives they live in. For some of her pieces, Dyck places metal signs she has created within a hive, letting the bees build their rich network of honeycomb around them. She also adds layer to found objects such as statues and figurines with the same method, resulting in other earthly statuettes encased in a honeycomb texture that transforms them into a beautiful, organic, mutant shapes. Dyck’s unconventional artist studio is the apiary. Dressed in beekeeping garb (with all openings sealed, as Dyck ironically has been diagnosed with a bee allergy), as she creates her works, the artist travels back and forth from the apiary to monitor the progress of the objects she transforms with the bees. Her partnership with bees helps viewers understand the importance of the pollinators, while also highlighting the exquisite beauty that happens in nature.