Maria Sibylla Merian
These works are part of my ongoing investigation into the life and work of 17th century Dutch entomologist and artist Maria Sibylla Merian.
In 1699, Merian sold 255 of her paintings to finance travel for her and her daughter to Suriname to study the insects of the Amazon rainforest. She is often cited as the first person to illustrate the full life cycles of insects and to undertake a purely scientific expedition from Europe to South America.
Work from this series has been included in Hotheads (2020) at Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco, and Flora Fantastic (2022) at apexart, New York City, curated by Tashima Thomas and Corina Apostol.
The project was included in a Garmany Foundation Grant, which supported research and travel to Suriname in 2023 for myself, David Wagner, Entomology Professor at the University of Connecticut, and Kristof Zyskowski, Ornithology Collection Manager at the Yale Peabody Museum. I was recently awarded a STEAMplant grant to return to Suriname and begin writing a graphic novel.
My current research interests include the colonial conditions of Merian’s time, with an emphasis on the lives of the indigenous and enslaved African women who she relied on to locate, understand, and document the flora and fauna of Suriname.
Installation of ‘Two Women and a Peacock Flower’ in Flora Fantastic at apexart, Nov-Dec 2022, Curated by Tashima Thomas and Corina Apostol
