Zanzara art series in progress

This fall I started a series on the "zanzara," which is how you pronounce the word "mosquito" in italian. In keeping with my upcoming trip to the Arctic Circle next June, this series discusses the role of the mosquito in this region and its impact on the environment due to the increase in rising temperatures. Warmer seasons are coming earlier and lasting longer, and large amounts of mosquitos are rampant in the lower Arctic areas. Entire swarms have been observed surrounding one caribou and sucking enough blood out of it in one day to kill it. THAT is power in numbers.

I started off with these charcoal/pastel sketches below.....

I then moved on to oil paintings on wood, 50 cm x 70 cm in size. Pietro Manzo is a fabulous and outstanding painter here in Firenze, and he was my professor/mentor while creating these paintings.
(You can check out his wonderful work here:  www.pietromanzo.net)

Playing around with the concept of mosquitos as sculptures, I wanted to use materials from

the earth to exhibit how these tiny, fragile creatures have such a strong presence to cause huge damage to our eco system.  Below are three pieces symbolizing this idea.

zanzara #1: travertine, fresh flowers

zanzara #2: marble, fur, tree branch

zanzara #3: travertine, caribou antlers

Dario Arcamone is a super skilled sculptor living in Toscana who mentored me with these pieces. I broke a rock or two while carving and he was always there to walk me through everything and find solutions. 

Daria Filardo (http://www.celesteprize.com/dariafilardo) is a mind blowing curator and art historian who has taught me crazy amounts of information this fall. She really helped me cess out concept issues with this sculpture series.  

I also worked closely with John Taylor - an exceptional person/academic/sculptor and will continue to do so this spring in prepping for the Arctic residency. 

Again, this series is in progress, so I will post more next spring as additional pieces come together.

Thanks for checking it out! 

:)