The Taste of Blue
Dutch Boy #Z-68 Aqua Electra
Atta sexdens ant tracks in ink on Dutch Boy paint sample, 2.5” x 2.5”, 2009
During a residency at the Tiputini Biodiversity Station in the Amazon I offered Dutch Boy “Home Decorator” series paint samples, along with non-toxic ink, to a colony of leaf cutter ants.
Double Dutch
Archival digital print of Dutch Boy #Z-68 Aqua Electra, 72” x 72”, 2010
The following year, I enlarged the print to human-scale, showing the dried ink and half-tone dots of the paint sample from the ant’s point of view, and returned with it to the original site. The 72”x72” print was then torn into pieces and “fed” to the colony of leaf cutters.
Site Intervention Video, 2013
Video clip showing some of the ants collecting the pieces and bringing them into the nest, while others are removing them.
For the gallery installation at White Box, Portland, a trail of the cut print led up the wall and wound through the gallery from one room to another, ending up at a video of ants bring the pieces into their nest, which was projected onto the gallery floor so that they appeared to be disappearing into the floor of the gallery. .
Gallery 2: Video projection of ants bringing print pieces into their nest, projected over print fragments.
Gallery 1: Video projection of ants cutting and collecting print pieces, projected over print fragments.
