Moths in Assemblage Art

I love moths and have incorporated them into several of my assemblage art pieces. Where and when my attraction to moths came about I’m not sure but, I remember fondly, enjoying a moth night late one summers evening high above the cliffs of South Stack. The moths were caught using a light and ground sheet not dissimilar to the set up shown below and once identified released back into the night.

South Stack. The moth night was held not far from the square white building near the cliff edge.

The light was used to attract the moths.

We did hope to see one of the biggest moths that live in this area, the Northern Eggar moth, which measures around seven or eight centimetres across its wings. Another moth I would have loved to see is the beautiful Elephant-Hawk moth. Unfortunately we saw neither of these incredible looking moths.

Northen Egger moth.

Elephant Hawk moth.

That was way back in 2008, a couple of years before I started selling my assemblage art on Etsy. Come to think of it, the first assemblage art piece incorporating moths I sold on Etsy, was in May 2011. Since then I’ve incorporated the moth theme into my assemblage art several times (not too often I hope) with the print of one in particular proving very popular.

The first assemblage art piece with a moth theme which sold on Etsy.

Originally a vintage tin art assemblage, the print of which has become rather popular.

Anyway, Tom has set up a Twitter account for me, which searches for and shares any assemblage art related tweets. It’s a great way of finding new stuff, sharing it with others and finding people with similar tastes. Looking through recent tweets related to assemblage art I came across this moth installation by Carlos Amorales. Having, as I explained, a liking for moths, I thought this was such an incredible piece I had to share it on the blog as well as Twitter. The piece, consisting of 25000 – 30000 black paper moths arranged on the walls and ceilings of the galleries where it was shown, is called Black Cloud. The piece was first installed at Yvon Lambert gallery New York in 2007 and later the Philadelphia Museum of Art .

Black Cloud. An instillation by Carlos Amorales.

Black Cloud. An instillation by Carlos Amorales.

Black Cloud. An instillation by Carlos Amorales.

Black Cloud. An instillation by Carlos Amorales.

Black Cloud. An instillation by Carlos Amorales.

Black Cloud. An instillation by Carlos Amorales.