Flight of the Bumblebees

Materials: Beeswax and mixed media

Inspired by Rimsky Korsakov’s classical piece from the opera The Tale of Tsar Saltan, in Flight of the Bumblebees Townsend uses traditional botanical wax sculpting techniques to create images of blossoms which attract pollinating insects, from paper, bleached beeswax and paraffin wax. The flowers are a beautiful and delicate homage to the natural world but their ghost like translucency is a reminder of our recent loss of pollinator species and habitats.

Flight of the Bumblebees was represented by Ruup & Form at ‘Platform’, London Art Fair. Curated by Candida Stevens, for the 2022 Fair, ‘Platform’ explored the theme of Music and its part in contemporary visual art.

Music has been inextricably linked to the fashions, expressions and entertainment of mankind since the beginning of time. Music and fine art have borrowed from each other for centuries through a combination of pure inspiration, collaborations and appropriation. Visual art and music are allied in the way their movements are titled and they share terms, like mood, tone, composition. Importantly they share a purpose, to inspire and provoke, both our minds and our mood.