Fireflies in the Garden, Raw Bone
The raw bone is the host plant of the white butterflies that we commonly see across the Cayman Islands: the Florida White butterfly (Appias drusilla) and the Great Southern White butterfly (Ascia monuste). These butterflies depend on the raw bone as a food source and as shelter during metamorphosis from caterpillar to butterfly, a symbolic association that also speaks to our own relationship with our natural environment. Through the intervention of the artists, Hartwell and Ferehawk have placed the distinctive flowers made up of multiple and outstretched pistils into a fantastical backdrop that has been left in intentional ambiguity, with darkened corners of foliage and brilliant beams of light.
About the Artist
Bill Ferehawk and David Hartwell
Known as Collective Artist Collective, Ferehawk and Hartwell live and work in Los Angeles as commercial artists in the film industry. Together they have created numerous works and installations as an ongoing investigation into the ways places and histories are marked and remembered. This series of photographs was taken in 2019 at the Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park when the pair were Artists-in-Residence at the National Gallery.