“Hope”
the butterfly
Scientific
name: Anetia thirza
Geographic location: El Salvador, Central America
Artist: Jessa Huebing-Reitinger
Medium: Oil on canvas 90” x 108” 2004
Performance venue: The Kansas City Zoo, Kansas City, MO. USA
This
Anetia thirza butterfly is from the mid to high altitude mountain
ranges of Central America. She is a relative of the Monarch
and was given her scientific name in 1833. Hope was raised
on a butterfly farm in El Salvador and as a caterpillar had
a milkweed diet, just like a Monarch. The milkweed diet helps
the caterpillar in self defense as it will taste terrible
to any predators that want to eat it. While the painting was
in process, many people thought “Hope” was a moth
because of the eyes on her wings and her earth tone colors.
However, notice the club like tips at the end of her antenna,
which is characteristic of butterflies.
Jessa
selected this butterfly because of the tiger eyes and face
design present in the upper wings. Under the microscope, “Hope”
has tens of thousands of little scales which Jessa has painted
on one at a time. Because of the complexity of the painstaking
microscopic details, this painting took a solid 5 months to
complete.
