FRENCH CURVE BEETLES
Stephen Shooster’s “French Curved Beetles” (2025), displayed at the Shoosty Bugs exhibition in Daytona’s Museum of Arts and Sciences, is a 36” x 36” vector graphic on 18mm silk twill, showcas- ing two beetles adorned with hand-drawn French curves. The pattern is intricate, with swirling, sym- metrical designs in teal and coral that evoke a sense of organic rhythm, seamlessly blending art and pre- cision. However, the true brilliance lies in Shoosty’s use of vector art—a technology born as a light- weight digital tool for web imagery. Vector graph- ics, built on elegant mathematical points, lines, and curves, allow infinite scalability without quality loss, making this piece as crisp at 36 inches as it would be at 36 feet. Designed using an iPad and Apple Pencil, Shoosty demonstrates the power of modern tools, freeing him from the desktop to create with precision and fluidity, the French curves proving the steadiness of his technique while doubling as a re- usable toolkit for future works.
This approach recalls the meticulous digital art of Beeple, whose vector-based works also lever- age technology for scalability and impact, though Shoosty’s focus on natural forms adds a warmer, tactile dimension via silk. Mathematician Beno- it Mandelbrot once said, “Clouds are not spheres, mountains are not cones… nature exhibits not sim- ply a higher degree but an altogether different lev- el of complexity,” a reflection that underscores the elegance of Shoosty’s vector curves, mirroring na- ture’s intricate beauty through technology.
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French Curve Beetles 36” x 36” 18 mm silk twill Front Shoosty 2023
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