Jo Whaley Lecture

I attended the Jo Whaley concert last night, which was packed. Jo Whaley is a photographer who was discussing her most recent work, Theater of Insects. In this series Whaley has created painting- like scenes with insects, often butterflys, on a set around five inches by seven inches. She creates miniature sets often using glass plates about an inch and a half deep which house an exotic insect with an interesting backdrop. Her backdrops are perhaps some of her most interesting additions as they have come from various materials such as burnt airplane parts, warped plastics, and occasionally treated paper. Whaley has had a background in theater lighting and photography which can be seen in her project in the dramatic lighting of her tiny sets. I found her work to be largely decorative and perhaps not to my particular taste, but I could definately apreciate their painting-like aesthetic. I thought that she was an interesting speaker and felt that she only improved my opinions of her work after hearing more about their creation. perhaps what stood out to me most was when she said, "by working with fiction you have the ability to say more." I definately agree and personally enjoy the freedom of working in surreal or fictional terms as Jo Whaley has.