![\"Casart](\"http:\/\/casartcoverings.com\/casartblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/1_Wonder_Bug-covered-walls_Smithsonian-Renwick-Gallery_Jennifer_Angus_dezeen_Jennifer_Angus_1568_3.jpg\")
<\/a>While the nine artists featured in WONDER create strikingly different works, they are connected by their interest in creating large-scale installations from unexpected materials. Index cards, marbles, strips of wood\u2014all objects so commonplace and ordinary we often overlook them\u2014are assembled, massed, and juxtaposed to utterly transform spaces and engage us in the most surprising ways. The works are expressions of process, labor, and materials that are grounded in our everyday world, but that combine to produce awe-inspiring results.<\/em> (via Renwick Gallery)<\/p>\n Nicholas R. Bell, the curator for the show, so eloquently explains this exhibition’s significance in this statement on Dezeen magazine, “The concept of ‘wonder’ \u2013 that moment of awe in the face of something new and unknown that transports us out of the everyday \u2013 is deeply intertwined with how we experience art…These elements matter in the context of this museum, devoted for more than four decades to the skilled working of materials in extraordinary ways.<\/em>“<\/p>\n<\/a>Her work is truly fascinating! She based her buggy design on wallpaper!! Her insect use was inspired by her ongoing use of arthropods<\/a> in her artwork and Victorian pattern, inherent in her teaching at the University of Wisconsin. The insects she uses in this installation are all different colors, shapes, sizes with many iridescent, shimmering shapes. They come together carefully placed on a beautifully, pink-colorwashed backdrop to form an overall design scheme, which is viewed as one succinct visual to the onlooker. The impression is similar to what one might have when walking into someone’s home for the first time and being awe-struck by their room’s ambiance and d\u00e9cor. It’s only after one views more closely that the individual design objects are bugs. As she states, “Many people who visit my exhibitions were never aware that such unusual insects exist.<\/em>” She describes the purpose and her ethical use of real insects<\/a> in her work on her website.<\/p>\n<\/a>This effort is for the long-awaited re-opening of the Renwick,<\/a> here in Washington, DC after two years of extensive renovation.<\/p>\n<\/a>Angus’ work is entitled The Midnight Garden<\/em> and is just one gallery that is a part of the Renwick’s Wonder<\/a> exhibition, which features 8 other artists who, “transform perception, and work on the border between art and craft<\/em>,” as stated on Dezeen magazine,<\/a> where you can also see other bug-related articles. (You can see related posts on this blog on Janet Echelman<\/a> and Patrick Dougherty<\/a>, just a few of the artists featured, whom I’ve been inspired by for quite some time.)<\/p>\n