Bees - very important to us all.

Next Exhibition at Cottleston opening 5 December. 

Our Bees - paintings by Katherine Steeds and Yaniv Janson

Yaniv Janson, Beehive under the Long White Cloud,
2014, acrylic on canvas, 76 x 76cm

Bees may not be a common theme for painters, but for two artists, the common honey bee has inspired two quite different visial approaches.

Yaniv Janson is a prolific artist who at the age of 19 was the youngest artist to be invited to join the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts.
With more than 40 exhibitions under his belt, he paints bees and the places we forget they are, on bright square canvases.
The Wallace Arts Trust recently purchased some of his works and they can be seen in the 2015 Wallace at exhibition of emerging artists. He's also a 2014 finalist in the Attitude awards, which will be celebrated in any December on TV One, and he was recently invited to exhibit at the Local Outsider Art Fair in Auckland, which takes place in November. His recent solo exhibition Bees In Trees was held in the ArtsPost Gallery at the Waikato Museum.

Drawing on the art of early naturalists overlaid with handwritten notes and science iconography, Katherine Steeds' artwork explores the minutiae of factual details and the old relationships between science, the scientist, and the subject. Steeds has a science degree and excelled in cartography as well as zoological and botanical drawings. Her illustrative style is underpinned by almost obsessive research. In the joint exhibition Our Bees she distills her examination of the behaviour of honey bees, which began during her studies for her postgraduate diploma in art and design. Her solo exhibition •Kuaka• The Godwit was exhibited recently at Cottleston Gallery in Tauranga.

Our Bees, paintings by Katherine Steeds and Yaniv Janson will open for the preview at 6:30pm Friday 5th December and from then daily 6 December - 17 December 11 - 4.30 daily.

Katherine Steeds, Bee Larva, 2014, tea on paper, 65 x 45cm

From: ArtNews New Zealand, Summer 2014.