Soft Target

Beeswax, cardboard, 2021

Soft Target is a series of compositions from beeswax,  and a nod to the ecological chains behind the yellow shades of wax. Wax is a widely used bee-made product whose colours depend on the pollen species of the plants and the region that the bees have visited. Bees are the most productive carriers of plant pollen, contributing to the maintenance of plant communities, diversity of the ecosystem and agriculture. To improve the quality of the harvest, farmers rent out bee colonies and temporarily set them up in their gardens during the blooming season. The journeys made by bees remain and can be seen in the semitones of the wax that is released.

Soft Target compositions and shades are reminiscent of camouflage clothing or ammunition used for wildlife observation or hunting, which, just like the colour palette of beeswax, are specific to each area. Among these abstract camouflage patterns, one begins to notice silhouettes of vegetables that depend on bees – onion seedlings and cucumber shoots and buds.

Beeswax works are exhibited on a cardboard platform. The sides of the corrugated cardboard sheets used for packaging and transportation are reminiscent of bee honeycomb hexagons. Through “Soft Target”, the artists are observing the way cultural memory shifts, how patterns and images migrate, separating from their original uses and taking on new meanings.

Solo show Soft Target at apiece, Vilnius, Lithuania

14 May –  21 Jun 2021

Exhibition views: Vytautas Narkevičius