These Tiny Helpers

Dee Barsy celebrates the important role of insects in maintaining nature’s balance.

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The passing of a year can bring significant changes in the weather and the environment surrounding us, especially as nature prepares itself for growth and transformation. What we may not always be aware of is the important role of insects, which Dee Barsy honours in her exhibition, These Tiny Little Helpers, on view until Oct. 26 at Winnipeg’s Urban Shaman.

In this site-specific work, her first solo exhibition, the Winnipeg artist transforms the “white cube” of the gallery into a blue cube – a brilliant aqua that saturates every inch of the space, including the floor and expresses the elements of water and air. Dubbed “Barsy blue” by the artist, the colour has become synonymous with her work since 2016, helping her create a visual language unique to her worldview.

Presented as a mural, the works in this show are anything but tiny. This is Barsy’s first foray into representational art after earlier work primarily in abstraction. She began with eight small pieces that eventually evolved into the mural. These smaller paintings are displayed outside the main gallery space alongside a detailed maquette of the show.

Barsy, who graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in fine arts from the University of Manitoba in 2013, found inspiration in the insects indigenous to Manitoba. She studied scientific surveys of insect populations and chose different species that support the balance of life, whether as food for other species, by consuming other insects or aiding with decomposition.

The helpers include the common green darner dragonfly, the red-belted bumblebee and the nine-spotted ladybug. Each insect resides in a circular image and floats above a range of Barsy’s abstract shapes and forms.

Further along, the hummingbird clearwing moth holds court on the back wall, while the field cricket crouches low in a corner. The jewel spider and monarch butterfly complete the vibrant circle.

Connecting the insects is a jagged coloured line, which Barsy interprets as the arches of elbows and shoulders, the geometry of her body. It creates a rhythmic hum you can almost hear as you view the work.

In These Tiny Helpers, Barsy invites us to notice the little beings, reminding us that regardless of size they are just as important as the bigger things around us, and we are all truly interconnected. ■

These Tiny Helpers / Agaashiiwi-wiiji’iweg / Ókik ká yá apisísisicik owícihiwéwak is on view at the Urban Shaman in Winnipeg from Sept. 6 to Oct. 26, 2019.

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Urban Shaman Contemporary Aboriginal Art

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