Philippa Bentley  

Just as a butterfly is caught and preserved in a specimen display box, so do we capture our experiences, feelings, snippets of days and archive them as our memories.

A long held fascination with insects, from childhood memories of playing in my rambling family garden and down at the creek inspired the 'Insects and Memories' series. I love the idea of retaining a sense of wonder in the world. I also have a long held associated  interest in natural history collections and marvel at the dinosaurs, beautiful butterflies and curious beetles, herbariums, dioramas, fossils and more.

I believe our natural history collections are as much about our social history and the context of the time in which they were collected, as they are about the natural flora and fauna preserved; the collector as well as the collected.

My insects can be simply enjoyed aesthetically yet they are multi-layered, with both personal and social meaning, and frequently imbued with playful nostalgia such as the inclusion of well loved branding and labels.

I enjoy watching people do a double take and peer in to the works when they realise there is something more in there. One reviewer called them "memory boxes"  and another "highly unusual and utterly delightful". I aim to build up layer on layer and often include an image within an image.

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I began working with this body of work in 2006, first creating my Monarch Butterfly, and I am chuffed- and deeply grateful- that collectors continue to collect my insects still now in 2024. Thank you! How special that is. And I have recently created a new series of insect collections. These are all drawn by me and then I individually screen print and hand paint each one. Truly fine art prints and collectable in a small limited edition.

I hope you enjoy them.