teardrops of Ra

Kirsty Krishnamayi Swanepoel

Contact: 083 227 9819

email: jukkelstukkel@gmail.com

Front cover image: Kirsty Krishnamayi Swanepoel, For the Love of Paris Green. Detail (2021).

The teardrops of Ra

KIRSTY KRISHNAMAYI SWANEPOEL

2O21

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CONTENTS

Introduction

Background

Thematic Concern

6

Influential Artists

7

My Work

Conclusion

List of Illustrations

List of Sources

About the Artist

INTRODUCTION

The Teardrops of Ra (2021) exhibition is inspired by the veneration of bees in mythology and

art through the ages. Egyptian mythology asserts that when the tears of the Sun-God Ra

fell to earth, they turned into bees. Having originated from Ra’s teardrops, bees, honey and

beeswax were considered to be part of Ra, and thus sacred. The Egyptians made offerings of

honey to various deities and the dead. Bee mythology was not limited to Egypt, however. The

|Xam creation myth, Ancient Greek mythology and the Hindu Goddess of Love, Parvati, who

vanquished the demon Anurasura and saved the universe by emitting a stream of black, stinging

bees from her body … The narratives of humans and bees is intertwined in history, mythology

and art.

Bee muralist, Matthew Wiley says that honeybees think collectively and share a collective

immune system, whereby the health of a bee is based on its population of usually 50,000 (Wiley

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in Martin 2016). This connectivity is something that we humans seem tragically incapable of,

since our planet faces the Sixth Extinction. My work investigates the importance of these little

insects to human survival, celebrating their beauty and bounty as human lessons.

IFC: Fig 1. Kirsty Swanepoel, Vestiges of the Storm. Detail (2021).

Page 2: Fig 2. Kirsty Swanepoel, For the Love of Paris Green. Detail (2021).




Page 6: Fig 6. Kirsty Swanepoel, Vestiges of the Storm. Detail (2021).

Page 8: Fig 7. Kirsty Swanepoel, For the Love of Paris Green. Installation view (2021).

BACKGROUND

José Graziano da Silva 1 states that: honeybees, the

most renowned pollinators, fly over plants that

account for more than 30 percent of global food

crop production, enabling them to reproduce.

Without bees nutritious foods such as potatoes,

onions, strawberries, cauliflower, pepper, coffee,

pumpkins, carrots, sunflowers, apples, almonds,

tomatoes and cocoa would disappear. Da Silva

warns that, despite their critical role in food

security, we are exposing bees to increasing

dangers through urbanisation of land, toxic

pesticides and monoculture agriculture. Climate

change is an additional hazard to bees. “Bees are

a sign of well-functioning ecosystems,” Graziano

da Silva said, adding: “To a great extent the decline

of pollinators is also a sign of the disruptions that

global changes are causing to ecosystems the

world over” (https://www.fao.org/news/story/en/

item/415259/icode/).

According to Knudsen (2021), early bee art dates

back to 8,000-2,000 BC in rock paintings found

in eastern Spain, where people are depicted

harvesting honey. Stone age paintings created by

the San in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Australia and

India reveal similar hunter-gatherer activities.

There is painted evidence of human interaction

with bees from the Mesolithic age, estimated to

be between 7,000 and 15,000 years old. Traces

of beeswax in lipid residues have been identified

on shards of pottery used by Neolithic Old World

farmers (Roffet-Salque 2015). Unsurprisingly,

the ancient Egyptians are credited as being the

first beekeepers. A relief from the Solar Temple

of Nyuserra evidences that the ancient Egyptians

were beekeepers from the Fifth Dynasty, over

4,000 years ago (Hammal 2018).

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Fig 8. Kirsty Swanepoel, Removing frame from hive.

1 Da Silva is the Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (https://www.fao.

org/news/story/en/item/415259/icode/).

Several works, including the 2nd century Artemis

of Ephesus statue features bees. During the

Renaissance in Europe, the honey bee was

transformed from a fertility symbol associated

with polytheism to become a Christian symbol of

eloquence. Famous examples of art featuring bees

include Venus With Cupid Stealing Honey by Lucas

Cranach the Elder (1472), The Miracle of the Bees

by Juan de Valdes Leal (1673), and the tomb of

Pope Urban VIII sculpted by Bernini between 1627

and 1647 (Wilson 2019:v).

The popularity of bees and honey with artists

has not diminished over time. In fact, the contrary

is true as artists become aware of the upsurge

in Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). The artist

and activist Joseph Beuys worked with bees and

honey from the 1950s. Beuys’s Honey Pump at the

workplace installation which pumped two tons of

honey and margarine for 100 days, was exhibited

at Documenta 6 in 1977 (https://www.tate.org.uk/

artworks/beuys).

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Fig 9. KKirsty Swanepoel, Vestiges of the Storm. Detail (2021).

Fig 10. Relief from the Solar Temple of Nyuserra, Fifth Dynasty.

THEMATIC CONCERN

I am enchanted by the design of the natural world

and wish to share that appreciation with viewers.

The small creatures of the natural world seem

simple and can be easily and quickly disregarded,

but when one takes the time to simply look, it is

possible to observe an intricate economy, effective

communal life and flourishing design. We humans

are bombarded by information: data, statistics,

video, news, social media and sound clips: digitally

available at the click of a button. We are subsumed

by visual images selling lifestyle products on an

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Fig 11. Kirsty Swanepoel, Mischa (2021).

unprecedented scale. More than ever, it is vital take

moments to stop and appreciate the beauty of

nature and the part it plays in our lives. During the

level-5 Covid lockdown, there was a proliferation

of bittersweet images of nature and animals thriving

without the presence of humans. When we humans

interconnect with nature, an imbalance results,

usually in favour of people. Our presence and our

activities, driven by consumerism and a disregard for

other sentient beings threatens the balance of life

on this planet.

Fig 12. Kirsty Swanepoel, Mischa (2021).

Fig 13. Cave painting, Valencia.

INFLUENTIAL ARTISTS

The contemporary Chinese artist, Ren Ri’s works

are strange collaborations with his bees. He builds

wooden frames for the bees that extend from

the centre where the queen bee resides. Ren

enjoys the instability of wax because of its ability to

change shape through temperature. He states that

the structure of the wax cells is orthohexagonal,

an inconceivable feature in the natural world, and

specific to bees (Cascone 2014).

Canadian artist, Ava Roth also collaborates

with her bees. They create honeycombs around

her embroidered hoops that are placed inside

Langstroth frames. Originally an encaustic painter

using heated beeswax and pigments, her reverence

for the beauty of the beeswax and an awareness

of CCD and the plight of bees led to a change.

Aware of the effects of climate change, Roth says

that “The idea was to celebrate the bees’ delicate

work by creating something beautiful

and hopeful together, which seems

particularly poignant at a time when

there is so much despair about the state

of our environment. My project is an

attempt to re-imagine the possibilities

of how humans interact with nature” (in

Barnes 2019).

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Fig 15. Ava Roth, Falling Horsehair, Gold #2.

Fig 14.

Ren Ri, Yuansu II.

MY WORK

Teardrops of Ra (2021) comprises three projects: graphite drawings,

a multimedia installation and photographic work.

As pertains to the graphite works, I decided to draw the bees on a

large scale format, revealing the intricacies of their bodies, using bee

specimens that had drowned in the swimming pool. Each bee was

named, carefully measured and stored. Our bees, scientifically named

Apis Mellifera Scutellata, were given names that are either related to

bees or mean ‘bee’ in another language. Working with these insects

requires magnification and care: a delicate undertaking, since the

antennae and legs are prone to detaching from the fragile body.

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Firstly, I created small drawings to scale and then projected these tiny

works on to a roll of 200 gsm paper, facilitating large scale renditions.

These images, on a plain ground, measure 150 x 100 cm – a scale of

1:75. Bees secrete cuticular hydrocarbons (CHC) in their footprints

(similar to human fingerprints) enabling them to communicate with

other species of bees (Pearce, Guiggioli and Rands 2017). Since

graphite is composed of hexagonal layers of carbon, I decided the

medium was suited to my drawings. I combined the graphite with

a black, water soluble pencil, using beeswax as the liquid medium.

I propose that this reinforces the notion of connection and

communication; we ‘leave our mark’ on the world simply by being

part of it.

Fig 16. Kirsty Swanepoel, For the Love of Paris Green. Detail (2021).

The cropped images of honeycomb are of a frame

removed from a hive. Honeycomb, the source of

life for growing pupae, is the storage unit for honey,

a source of nutrition that ensures the continued

survival of the hive. A hypnotic example of sacred

geometry in nature, honeycomb and beeswax

have been used by humans for centuries. My

images celebrate the magnification of something

seen and familiar, but perhaps unobserved, its

beauty remaining unappreciated. These images

are featured in the multimedia installation and the

multimedia artwork, images of the intimate world

of bees reproduced on manmade materials.

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Fig 17. Kirsty Swanepoel, Vestiges of the Storm. Detail (2021).

The multimedia installation consists of framed

images of honeycomb printed on clear vinyl

and placed on plexiglass and projected. The

free-standing pine frames are based on the

design of the Langstroth hive. 1 The images

1 Patented by Reverend Lorenzo Lorraine Langstroth

in 1853, this design enables frames to be removed, honey

extracted and then returned to the hive with honeycomb

intact. Bees are able to re-use honeycomb, a time and

energy saving measure. The Langstroth frames remain the

most popular frames in use today (National Inventors

Hall of Fame).

have been printed on vinyl, creating a ghostly

effect reminiscent of the past, memory and

disappearance. When the artworks are illuminated,

a shadow-image is projected on the floor. The

frames are scattered throughout the gallery space,

creating an organic path that meanders.

The multimedia artwork consists of a landscape

of honeycomb images stitched together and

populated with flowers made from deconstructed

optical fibre cable and plastic flower garlands. I

have incorporated natural honeycomb, as well as

plastic sheets of honeycomb used by beekeepers

as a foundation to assist bees in the creation of

honeycomb. This artwork comments on the

relationship between science and nature, artifice

and reality. For all our technological advances,

humans cannot re-create the natural world.

Overleaf 22 & 23:

Fig 18. Kirsty Swanepoel, Vestiges of the Storm. Installation view (2021).

Fig 19. Kirsty Swanepoel, Vestiges of the Storm. Installation view (2021).

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CONCLUSION

The Teardrops of Ra (2021) made me

realise that bees and humans are

inextricably bound in mythology, the

creative arts and life on earth. We

need to recognise and respect the

role of bees, without which we will

face global food insecurity. Artists

through the ages have been inspired

by bees and at this time, it is more

important than ever that we are

inspired by them – if for no other

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reason than our own future is at

stake.



BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barnes, S. 2019. Honey bees become unconventional collaborators by completing this artist’s embroidery.

https://mymodernmet.com/ava-roth-bee-collaboration/ (Accessed 11 October 2021).

Cascone, S. 2014. Artists honeycomb sculptures made by bees spark buzz. Ren Ri’s otherworldly works are

as sweet as honey. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/artists-honeycomb-sculptures-made-by-beesspark-buzz-56554

(Accessed 20 October 2021).

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. 2016. Bees are bellwethers for the healthy

agricultural ecosystems they help create. https://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/415259/icode/


Jobson, C. 2016. The good of the hive: artist Matthew Wiley travels the world to paint 50, 000 bees. Colossal.

https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2016/08/the-good-of-the-hive-bee-murals/ (Accessed 12 October

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2021).

Knudsen, C. 2020. Bee art throughout the ages. https://www.beepods.com/bee-art-throughout-the-ages/


National Inventors Hall of Fame. 2021. Lorenzo L Langstroth. https://www.invent.org/inductees/

lorenzo-l-langstroth (Accessed 11 October 2021).

Pierce, RF, Guiggioli, L & Rands, SA. 2017. Bumblebees can discriminate between scent marks deposited by

co-species. https://www.nature.com/articles/srep43872.pdf (Accessed 17 October 2021).

Roffet-Salque, M, Regert, M, Evershed, R, Outram et al. 2015. Widespread exploitation of the honeybee by

early Neolithic farmers. Nature 527(7577):226-230.

Tate. [Sa]. Joseph Beuys: Honey is flowing in all directions. https://www.tate.org.uk/artworks/beuys (Accessed

10 October 2021).

Wilson, M. 2019. The iconography of the honeybee in Western art. MA dissertation, Dominican University of

California, San Rafael.

LIST OF IMAGES

IFC Fig 1. Kirsty Swanepoel, Vestiges of the Storm. Detail (2021). Multimedia Installation. Dimensions variable.

Fig 2: Kirsty Swanepoel, For the Love of Paris Green. Detail (2021). Photographic multimedia collage. 214 x 42 cm. 2




Fig 6. Kirsty Swanepoel, Vestiges of the Storm. Detail (2021). Multimedia Installation. Dimensions variable. 6

Fig 7: Kirsty Swanepoel, For the Love of Paris Green. Installation view (2021. 8.

Photographic multimedia collage. 214 x 42 cm.

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Fig 8. Kirsty Swanepoel, Removing frame from hive (own photo) 10

Fig 15. Ava Roth, Falling Horsehair, Gold #2. Encaustic, Japanese tissue, horse hair and thread in embroidery hoop, 17

embedded in honeycomb, custom double length Langstroth hive frame, 19”x 9.5 inches.

All images © Ava Roth, shared with permission.

Fig 16. Kirsty Swanepoel, For the Love of Paris Green. Detail (2021). Photographic multimedia collage. 214 x 42 cm. 18


Fig 18. Kirsty Swanepoel, Vestiges of the Storm. Installation view (2021). Multimedia Installation. Dimensions variable. 22

Fig 19. Kirsty Swanepoel, Vestiges of the Storm. Installation view (2021). Multimedia Installation. Dimensions variable. 23





Fig 10. Relief from the Solar Temple of Nyuserra, Fifth Dynasty. After G. Kritsky. The Quest for the Perfect Hive, 13

A History of Innovation in Bee Culture (Oxford, 2010), 12.

Fig 11. Kirsty Swanepoel, Mischa (2021). Graphite and beeswax on paper, 106.5 x 142 cm. 14

Fig 12. Kirsty Swanepoel, Madhukara (2021). Graphite and beeswax on paper, 138 x 124 cm. 14

Fig 13. Cave Painting, https://i0.wp.com/valencia-international.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/bees.jpg 15

Fig 14. Ren Ri, Yuansu II. Photo: Alessando de Toni Hunting. 16

IBC

Fig 23. Kirsty Swanepoel, For the Love of Paris Green. Installation view (2021). Photographic multimedia collage.

214 x 42 cm.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Born and currently residing in Johannesburg, this artist works in both

traditional and non-traditional media. Enamoured by nature and natural

artefacts, her work celebrates the design of the natural world. This

fascination extends to sacred geometry and the applications of such in both

the natural and material world.

Her work often involves elements of scale, with works being in large format.

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Although happy where she is, this artist dreams of a studio with a sea view.

Fig 23: Kirsty Swanepoel, For the Love of Paris Green. Installation view (2021).

teardrops of Ra

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