The waggle dance is the symbolic language honeybees use to communicate important information with each other. They use the dance to let other bees know the distance and direction of a food source from their hive. Artist Erica Konrad has used the waggle dance as a metaphor through paintings that will be on display at The Arts Station starting Thursday night.
An integrated communication system, the waggle dance is deemed one of the seven wonders of the animal behaviour world. Consequently, Erica has created seven paintings representing dialogue, one diptych representing human connection, as well as a honeycomb panel that illustrates the waggle dance formation.
Erica’s primary medium is encaustic, a mixture of heated beeswax and tree sap, with added pigments for colour. Metal tools and special brushes can be used to shape the paint before it cools, or heated metal tools can be used to manipulate the wax once it has cooled onto the surface. Working quickly while the wax heats and cools allows Erica’s intuitive mind to take over, creating an opportunity for the unexpected to reveal itself. Sharing this exchange, suggested through flow and preservation of the medium itself, is Erica’s attempt at the human version of the waggle dance.
Join Erica at the opening reception of her exhibit, 7 p.m. at The Arts Station tomorrow. Her work will be on display until Tuesday, April 30.