Exquisite Creatures Revealed is an amazing exhibition at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) in Portland, Oregon. It will be on display until February 17, 2025.
Christopher Marley combined elements of art and the natural world into three-dimensional masterpieces. Marley has lived in dozens of countries and studied art and design, while pursuing a career in fashion. The time he spent working for Luis Vuitton, Georgio Armani, Gucci, Donna Karan, and Nike influenced his overall aesthetics.
These displays were created using mainly one color, complementary colors, analogous colors, and black and white. The unique works of art highlight the wide range of colors and forms occurring in nature.
The butterfly pieces were wonderfully colorful, but also beautiful because of their iridescence. The various species of Lepidoptera shown live in France, China, Indonesia, Laos, Peru, Brazil, Guyana, Bolivia, Central African Republic, Japan, Thailand, and Malaysia.
These Jewel Beetles are all the same species, just different in color. The wide variety of colors, and their shiny texture, made for an eye-catching display. They live in Southeast Asia.
These remarkable creatures are considered one of the most efficient hunters in the animal kingdom. The dragonfly species in this piece live in regions of the U.S. and Asia.
There are over 20,000 species of leaf mimic katydids in the world. The insects shown live in Peru, Indonesia, Malayasia, Thailand, and Papua New Guinea.
This triptych shows the significant differences in crab’s body shape and size. Did you know there are over 7,000 species of crab in the world?
I think these were some of my favorite pieces in this exhibit. The sea urchins in these pieces reside in oceans around the world.
This triptych piece had a nice movement to it. I liked its curving lines, the variety of its colorful sea urchins, and the simple shapes of the white sand dollars in the background.
I liked the next piece because it reminded me of the excitement I’ve experienced upon finding a complete sand dollar while walking along Pacific Northwest beaches. If you shake them, you’ll hear a rattling sound. The small V-shaped pieces found inside dead sand dollars are called doves. In life, they function as teeth.
These seahorse skeletons looked so delicate. These seahorses lived in Hawaii.
This piece, composed of Brittle Stars, also looked fragile. This species lives in the Philippines.
This piece includes three Royal Pythons that lived in Sub-Saharan Africa. This piece was interesting, but I also found it to be kind of disturbing.
This piece showed the diversity of colors and forms of feathers.
These Rosella skins show the wide range of color in their feathers. This species is native to Australia.
Christopher Marley briefly described why he included this orchid piece in the exhibition. He was impressed by the flowers’ “bizarre, extravagant, even superfluous morphology, and the colors unbound by any parameters give them a ruggedly individual, almost defiant air that I find both intoxicating and humbling.”
In case you were wondering, all of the artwork includes real preserved specimens. The specimens were collected using ecologically friendly and sustainable methods in collaboration with zoos, museums, and collectors. None of the vertebrates featured in this exhibition were killed for the art pieces.
The Exquisite Creatures Revealed exhibition was unlike any I’ve ever seen. It was definitely one of my favorite exhibits I saw last year. Yeah, the specimens themselves are fascinating, but the way Marley displayed them was awe-inspiring. WOW!
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Exquisitely beautiful! This is a fascinating exhibit. I'm so glad you chose to use these photos for the challenge, Siobhan.
Thanks, Egidio! I was glad to see a prompt related to colors this week. :)
I'm glad you liked it.
Wow....What an incredible exhibit! I love the bird feathers, especially.
Yeah, it was an impressive exhibit. I liked the feather one as well, Sandy.
Thanks for including the 3tC.
Thank you! I couldn't figure out how to include yeti, but I used the other two.
Thhank you for sharing. I need to see this exhibit.
You're welcome, Ralph! Lots of cool insects in this exhibit.
Nice!
I'm glad you liked it!
Oh my Siobhan, I loved this one especially! Some of the colorful examples are truly exquisite. And I never knew that about sand dollars "teeth", that's crazy! Despite its lack of color I'd have to choose that one as my favorite 😍
Yes, they were colorful, but the less colorful ones were nice too. The sand dollars were great!
That's an amazing and unusual exhibition. I'm glad to read that none of the insects etc included were killed for the project and in some ways I wish you'd mentioned it at the start of the post as I felt a bit concerned as I looked at some of the pieces such as the beautiful butterflies! Despite all those gorgeous colours, I think my favourites were the more subtle pieces like the sand dollar triptych and the brittle stars.
Yeah, I thought about putting that info up front, but decided to include it at the end. It was a beautiful exhibit, but sad in a way too. Yes, I agree, some of the less colorful pieces really stood out. Thanks, Sarah!
Wow Siobhan, this is an amazing reply to this challenge. I assumed that the creatures used were gathered after they died. That made creating the exhibits even more difficult. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks, Anne! Glad you liked it. It probably took a long time to collect all those specimens from various sources.
amazing exhibition, quite inspirational
Yes, Barbara, it was an amazing exhibition!
Beautiful creations and well shot photos! Thank you. I especially like the butterflies - the kaleidoscope image in particular!
Thanks, Libdy! Yes, the butterflies were gorgeous. 🦋