Natalie Howard's "Beeware of the Toxic Beeauty Salon"

My work metaphorically displays the crisis the world is facing as bee populations are slowly declining due to the use of pesticides and chemicals in the agricultural industry. The importance of bees starts with their ability to pollinate and help plants produce their natural resources. For instance, without bees pollinating plants our most popular crops such as apples, almonds, blueberries, cherries, avocados, onions, and many more plants would longer be able to produce their resources due to a lack of pollination. Globally, supermarkets would lack about half or more of their produce without bees. Therefore, presenting a struggle to feed a growing global population of 7 billion people. Farmers largely contributed to the decline of bees, due to their agricultural practices. When farmers spray crops with insecticides, such as Neonicotinoids, bees pick up these chemicals when pollinating. When the chemicals are brought back to the hive the nectar and other bees become infected with the chemical, killing the whole hive of bees.

In my piece, Beeware of the Toxic Beeauty Salon, I illustrated my vision of how bees are being treated by farmers to spread awareness in my community. In hair salons, clients are treated by stylists with various products to give them their desired haircut. However, in my interpretation, a hair salon playfully represents how farmers are treating bees with killer insecticides. Rather than catch people’s attention with a very blunt visual of dying bees, I decided to take an illustrative approach to the subject because creating an art piece allows me the freedom to present the subject to my audience in a clever manner.

Materials Used

Mediums: Marker, Pen, White Gel Pen