INTRODUCTION Shoosty Bugs / An Art Infestation -
Stephen Shooster is a fine artist and writer born in 1958, in Chester, Pennsylvania. Before joining the family’s small telephone answering service business, he earned a BFA from the University of Florida. Stephen’s art is influenced by his early life expe - riences, his career in technology, his extensive writing and exploration of the Holo - caust, and most importantly, his inquisitive nature. His commitment to freedom and his belief in art as an expression of that freedom are key influences in his works. His artistic process begins with writing, which he describes as ‘thinking on paper. ” His visual world is inspired by multiple themes and styles, including music, the natural world, and a wide range of conceptual art. Operating under the nom-de-guerre Shoosty, the artist fuses digitally conceived images with a variety of media, most recently silk. His bug creations have captured the imagination of a growing following. Indeed, Shoosty Bugs have taken on a life of their own. These fanciful insects, both real and imagined, represent a long history of human fascination with bugs. One of the oldest known examples of insect art is a 14,000-year-old engraving of a cricket carved into a fragment of bison bone found in a cave in southern France. Scarab beetles are common in Egyptian religious art and cicadas are central to Navajo creation myth. Shoosty’s contribution to the genre is “more at home in Alice’s Wonderland than in Linnaeus’ Taxonomy. ”
“The concept of creating a gallery of fantastic insects is in the tradition of art that insists on the participation of the viewer. Both the artist and the viewer know that the bug in question does not exist in the real world. Except that it does exist in the mind of the artist and the viewer where it stimulates that most potent human attribute - imagina- tion.” -Shoosty
Reading the Artist’s Bio
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