Love Letters

Vintage valentines and other love letters create a textured background on to which I painted a section of Maria Sibylla Merian's plate 18 from her Suriname collection. In 1699 Maria Sibylla Merian traveled to Surname as an artist, entomologist and single mother. She was novel in her approach to documenting the life cycle of insects, birds and animals as she couched them within their natural world, documenting the life cycle of the plants as well as the insects. Although she was revered by the European scientific community of her time, her work sought after by the most ardent collectors, her documentation of the bird eating tarantula was not to be believed until it was confirmed over 100 years later by a male naturalist. She continues to be excluded from the history books documenting entomology, art and women's histories.