Magnifying class

Lately, David Humphreys’ pieces have begun as small life-sized specimens at Maxilla & Mandible, a quirky gift shop on Manhattan’s Upper East Side one block from the Museum of Natural History. He calls the entomology specialists there almost weekly to order the latest preserved beetles and butterflies shipped overnight to his Southdowns home in foam-lined boxes. Consider this the larval stage of Humphreys’ project. Once they arrive he can begin the somewhat secretive process he calls “hand-applied photographic collage,” with its quadrants, computer-assisted scaling and super-high-resolution imaging.

The Baton Rouge photographer is obsessed with showcasing very small things writ large. He calls the series Dissected. First it was sliced and reassembled artichokes, pears, radishes and fuji mums pieced together in stark black-and-white blow-ups. These desaturated images aim critical eyes toward the oft-overlooked architecture of the subjects, but Humphreys didn’t have the heart to take the color out of his Morpho Didius.

“This one is the culmination of a two-year exploration of the process,” Humphreys says about his work based on the rainforest butterfly species with the unmistakably luminescent aquamarine wings. “You can see around the edges they are curled, pinched and rough. I’m the kind of artist who likes happy accidents.”

From a distance, Morpho Didius—its 5×8-foot unstructured canvas suspended at a staircase landing—looks almost like patchwork, or maybe a photorealist painting by an insect-obsessed Chuck Close acolyte.

Inside II City Plaza, Mike Wampold’s dazzling new downtown high-rise, the 55 attorneys of Phelps Dunbar occupy three floors. Humphreys’ butterfly is visible from all three. Pristine and more than a little Kubrick-esque, the law office is open, airy, pearl white and crisp; in other words, the perfect slate for just about any form of eye-catching art. The bigger and bolder the better.

Morpho Didius fills that bill, a simultaneous dissection and amplification of the glorious details of a six-inch butterfly reborn with a seven-foot wingspan. Even the height each piece is hung is very important to Humphreys. He wants viewers almost looking up at the image. “I had always envisioned it more for a business setting,” Humphreys says. “And once I saw it at Phelps, I just knew my butterfly had found a home.”

But Phelps Dunbar did not purchase the piece on a whim. Earlier this year the firm established an art committee to work with gallerist Ann Connelly and choose local art that will look site-specific and brilliant in the new office. Two wistful Saliha Staibs already brighten the space.

“I just love that the butterfly is such a vivid image on our white wall,” says Mary Trahan, the firm’s Baton Rouge office manager. “It’s been a collecting process over 25 years for the firm, but since we moved in March, there’s even more interest.”

Take heed, upper management. Corporate art can be cool, too. fabphotos.com