My work explores ideas of home and comfort. Until I moved to Madison, Wisconsin in September 2001, I lived in downtown Toronto, Canada. My apartment was located above a laundromat and beside a convenience store. While it was the perfect location in many respects it was also the optimum breeding conditions for mice and roaches. One month I caught 21 mice. I used to feel sorry for them, but by "Number 15" my sympathy was exhausted. No matter what I did the battle was a constant. My worries were compounded by well meaning people who told me about the various diseases one can catch from these unwanted pests. I am interested in the connection between insects and disease. In the mid twelfth century when the Bubonic Plague struck, many believed that rats were the source of the disease, but in actual fact it was the fleas which resided on the rodents who were the actual carriers.

These days AIDS is our modern plague. As a frequent visitor to Thailand, where AIDS is taking a devastating toll, I have heard foreign travellers discuss the possibility of whether a mosquito can transmit HIV, the AIDS virus. When I hear the expression "super bugs", a scourge with which hospitals must contend, I envision the nasty creatures of childhood which reside under one's bed in the dark. Western culture in particular has a certain hysteria when it comes to insects. They are symbols of dirtiness, disease and decay. In other cultures, insects hold religious significance or at least a measure of respect, be they food, medicine, embellishment or pets.

Eupholus Bennetti is an installation of more than a thousand real insects (this is a site specific installation and the number changes according to the venue) pinned directly to the wall in a continuous pattern which mimics wallpaper. Eupholus Bennetti alludes to the unseen world of dust mites, germs and bacteria, both friendly and not. The particular insect, a weevil from Papua New Guinea (Eupholus Bennetti), was chosen because its physical beauty makes it non threatening. In vivid hues of blue, green and purple, some iridescent, one is able to enjoy the colour, the pattern and the whimsical arrangement, but what if these came to life, started to move, as in Charlotte Perkins Gilman classic story "The Yellow Wallpaper"?

Relic continues to explore the themes mentioned above but considers further the many historical issues of collecting that Eupholus Bennetti raised, in particular the insatiable Victorian collector for whom nothing was sacrosanct. It was installed for the first time at Gallery Stratford in January 2003. The work addresses the obsessive need to collect and own at the expense, exhaustion and extinction of a species.

Relic's repeating pattern is made up almost entirely of those insects which mimic leaves. They are attached to the wall in three dimensional relief and refer to wallpapers associated with the William Morris and Liberty companies of the mid to late 19th century. These companies created wallpapers lush and abundant with flora and fauna. Relic is intended to cover four walls of a room no smaller than twelve feet square (this can be adjusted according to available space). The beauty and horror of so many insects will be experienced simultaneously. We are surrounded, enveloped in the environment. A kind of giddy hysteria sets in as the sound piece, a kind of "white noise" of insects calls, reverberates around the room. 		   
 
For further information please see Exhibitions 2002/2003