Butterflies - I saved an Admiral's life Thomas Zika conceptually investigates spatial and conscious transformation. The old Greek word for butterfly refers to the “psyche†(literally breath, soul) and was used to denominate the insect. We tend to associate butterflies with beauty, transience, and the temporal. The cycle of the butterfly from cocoon to a flying object appeals much to the imagination. Passing through the rather shabby phases of egg, nymph, larva, and cocoon, it arrives at the imago: It is in this last state of manifestation where the individual literally becomes an image. The new series of work by German artist Thomas Zika plays with these associations we have with butterflies. His father, fascinated by this insect, started collecting butterflies in the late fifties taking young Thomas with him to catch a butterfly and prepare it carefully for eternity. Resulting in boxes and boxes filled with the little butterflies, their wings decorated with various patterns and colors, each creature showing its unique identity. Zika's fascination for this creature started thus early, and now he has enabled himself to go beyond the subject of these boxed butterflies. The boxes collected by his father no longer form the subject of Zika's work, but the total context of the life and death of a butterfly comes to life in this new series of photographs Zika has taken in 2010. He creates a colorful environment of flowers or decorative background and places the image of a bigger than life-size butterfly as a negative form into the image. In addition, Zika repurposes found photography by layering and constructing a new image and then finally photographying the result. Light and transparency enter the image in a natural way giving the image depth, a dimension in which the butterfly makes his last round before dissolving into the air. As big shadows they are floating in a space reflecting their colors and fragile being.
