Wondrous Beauty Made From Dead Insects

While most people reach for a shoe or a broom when they see a huge bug on their wall, textile designer Jennifer Angus sees beauty and an opportunity for inspiration.

For more than a decade, Angus has used dead bugs—wasps, katydid, beetles, mantises, and cicadas—as her primary artistic medium. Her installations transform these insects and their vividly colored carapaces into elaborate, mounted collages and dioramas that reveal the cultural significance of these animals and hidden stories that arise from patterns in their display.

Her latest show at the Staten Island Museum, Magicicada, leans on the museum’s long history and collections of cicadas, the magic of their 17 year life cycle and the Victorian-era aesthetics to create wonder from dead creatures that normally elicit disgust.