Tessa Farmer - Swarm (2004) - mixed media, desiccated insect remains, dried plant roots, and other organic ephemera

“Farmer’s tiny sculptures give a glimpse into the world of fairies. No story-book land of Tinkerbells, Swarm envisions the purveyors of mischief and magic as an actual species, as animalistic and Darwinian as any other.

Exchanging Victorian romanticism for the darker pragmatism of science, Farmer evidences her specimens as fearsome skeletal fiends, plausible ‘Hell’s Angels’ of a microscopic apocalypse.

Posed in dramatic battle formations, Farmer’s menagerie wages war against garden variety pests; each figure, painstakingly hand crafted and adorned with real insect wings, stands less than 1 cm tall.”

(via tenxxminutes)