Moth logo show struggles to fly

There is an insect invasion at Profiles but only in size, not number. You have never seen moths or butterflies this big before and there’s a lot to be said for studying nature up close.

Edmonton-based visual artist Clint Wilson says there is more to be said about the nature of humankind’s relationship with the world but he isn’t telling. He only gives us the first clue and it comes in the form of corporate logos.

On the surface, his new exhibit called Family Resemblance starts off like an exaggerated museum inventory, a glimpse into the microscope where 14 local butterflies and moths are the specimens. Wilson estimates they have been enlarged to 25 times their actual size but apart from their dimensions, there is something not quite right with how they look. They are monsters because they also have strange markings on their wings, unusually geometric and colourful shapes that make it seem like they have been branded like cattle on an unfamiliar ranch.

It’s that issue of the non-familial that seems most perplexing with Family Resemblance. Is Wilson claiming these insects as his own? Is there another larger statement being made or is it simply his version of improving nature for aesthetic purposes?

From his artist’s statement, I learned the brands are logos of forestry and biotechnology companies but they don’t resonate with me immediately. As a viewer, what I need is a direction.

That statement talks about how the insects could be seen in a future “biomimetic environment of a post-industrial landscape” and that they could “inscribe and populate a second nature.”

Why not come right out with the names of the companies then? There’s something that just doesn’t seem to be flying here.

“I don’t want to be too didactic with this,” Wilson said. “Let’s just say that I’m altering their original plumage, their original patterns, with overlays that almost become like little abstract paintings.”

He did make one suggestion for the attendees, hinting he wants us to start thinking about what we are doing to the world.

“[I want them to be] thinking a little bit around how we, the conception of nature, really doesn’t exist any more, that nature is anything we want to make it. And we do, we make it.”

He ended by saying these species were collected from areas near where some of these corporations operate.

Take it for what you will then — either a provocative statement on the intrinsic influence that industry has inflicted upon the natural order or a superficial dabbling of enlarged wildlife pictures with random shapes superimposed on them. Either way, it comes off as a fairly repetitive exercise, one that threatens to lose the viewer’s interest quickly.