Flutterbies are artworks made by dodsicle through digital collage of pressed flowers. The artworks were created through a unique, partly organic, partly digital creation process. All flowers in these artworks were hand-picked, pressed and photographed separately. The symbolic meaning of the artworks, and the creation process are aligned, and therefore these works represent a new and unique way to critically examine our relationship with nature, as well as the tensions between preservation, captivity and freedom.
The flutterbies collection explores preservation in different ways: by preserving the flowers both digitally and by pressing them, but also by portraying butterflies which used to be preserved and pinned to be put on display.
This collection was inspired by the story of the Indonesian nationalists who were held in captivity by the Dutch colonial powers, and forced to catch butterflies, under terrible conditions, as forced labour in the jungle of New Guinea in the 1930s. Eventually, 16,000 Butterflies were caught and presented to Prince Leopold the 3rd of Belgium. They are now in the collection of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (Source: De Grote Indonesië Tentoonstelling, Amsterdam, 2024).
This artwork is authentic and was created by dodsicle; the purchase of the NFT is a purchase of the asset, not of the copyright.