Drone

The figure of honeybee drones began appearing in my paintings with a greater awareness in “Where have all the Fathers Gone? IV”. When the painting was awarded the trophy at the Ilhabela Salon in 2021, I spoke to the employees at FUNDACI where the Salon had been held and realized that they were overall ignorant of the nature of drones and the myriad of meanings this figure could provide. I was using this signifier in my work, but had yet to develop what it signified within my pictorial universe. It was then that I set out to create a painting that would isolate this figure and provide it with meaning.

At the time, my in-laws were becoming beekeepers. They had studied with one of the local farming cooperatives where they lived and began their own hives. I read a bit of the material they had studied and was impacted by what I read about drones.

Contrary to what one might think, drones aren’t fit for defending the hive (as in militar attack drones), Drones have no stinger and cannot attack intruders. Instead, that which should develop into a stinger in their bodies develops into the male reproductive organ (notice the persisting penetrative function…). And, just like the stinger, it is used only once, breaks off during use, and causes the drone’s demise.

Drones are haploid creatures. Which means they are formed entirely from a single, non-fertilized egg from the queen. Drones have no father. Which immediately drew my interest in these creatures and had me including them in the “Where have all the Fathers Gone?” series. This genetic peculiarity makes the family tree of a single drone follow the Fibonacci Sequence. The drone is born of one queen. That mother queen comes from a drone (grandfather) and a queen (grandmother), The grandfather drone comes from a great grandmother queen. The grandmother queen comes from a great grandfather drone and a great grandmother queen. 1-1-2-3-5-8 and so forth. Each number (representing the amount of individuals in each generation) is the sum of the two previous numbers. The Sequence is seen in several instances in nature.

All of this content came to my attention at a time when I was attempting to talk to my own father, trying to build an intimacy we hadn’t been culturally taught to share, and noticing the fact that he was also a bit of a drone like me. He also felt the absence of his own father, my grandfather, and had to learn much of his process of adulting as a man on his own as well.

I experimented with several things in this painting. I tried making the biggest sheet of paper I could make in my studio at that time. It was also the first time I mounted the paper on a chassi, like a regular canvas. I made use of encaustic to include wax in a painting about honeybees. And made a painting to be perceived in the variation of textures more than the variation of colors.

It took a long time for me to consider texture in painting. I always spread the paint really thin, delighting in noticing the weave behind the paint. When I began considering textures, they were rendered in paint, as the illusion of volume. I took even longer to allow myself to use thicker layers of paint. I realized with this painting that even my painting surface, recycled paper, can provide interesting textures.

Drone

September 2021

Acrylic, encaustic and solvent transfer on recycled paper.

98 x 98 cm

The painting was awarded with the second prize in the Jacareí Salon in 2022.