Empty Beauty

Holly Downing

Printmaker Holly Downing has been working on a series of mezzotints related to the toll that pollution is taking on the creatures that inhabit Earth.

"Empty Beauty" is a response to Colony Collapse disorder, the phenomenon that occurs when the majority or all of the worker bees in a colony disappear and leave behind a queen. In the six years leading up to 2013, more than 10 million beehives were lost. This devastation of the western honeybee is partly being linked to the family of pesticides called Neonicotinoilds. In 2013, the European Union and a few non EU countries restricted use of some of these pesticides.