Elizabeth Winter

Entomology I and II

Oil on canvas
(2x) 91cm x 91cm

>> Elizabeth has been working as a professional artist for more than 25 years. She has had numerous exhibitions – mostly around Melbourne. She moved to Ballarat late in 2017. Her work is held in private collections in Australia and overseas. Her work mainly consists of paintings (usually oil) and drawings.

Metamorphosis

by Megan Riedl

We never knew what we were asking for, but it wasn’t this.
A field of flowers, our petals folded closed, turned sour and asking
Why a civilisation was built from our sugar-coated hearts without our consent?
Our butterfly-winged fragility the keystone that holds up the whole damned hive.
Yes, queens, beloved for being the world’s mothers,
Or else make us gilded-lily whores, opening the slit of our figs
For sunlight and the chance of pollination, if not love.
Drones collecting our nectar as another mark on their bedpost.
What happens when the pretty-enough peonies choose not to bloom?
Six-sided sweet nothings begin to break
Bread-winning bees first swarm, then sting, then perish en masse;
All of us terrified of living on other side of the metamorphosis.

Listen to Megan’s poem:
 

>> Megan is a Ballarat-based arts management professional, poet, playwright and theatre director. Megan is the founding artistic director of Tripwire Theatre Inc, and has worked with Bendigo and Creswick theatre companies. Megan regularly performs at Words Out Loud and was part of the Minerva Speaks project in 2017.

Online: www.meganjriedl.wordpress.com

Elizabeth’s response to Megan’s text:
Megan seems to have approached the theme from a more personal perspective and she interprets some of the imagery differently. Yet for me the poem and the painting are essentially about the same thing – change and destruction brought about by selfishness and shortsighted behaviour. They share a sense of loss and a feeling of foreboding about the future.
A lack of respect for nature has resulted in the threat to the survival of insects such as bees. This does not bode well for the future of humans.

A poster by Clare Hartigan for text by Megan Riedl