Ava Roth
Mixed media sculptor
Toronto, Canada
When an artist co-creates with nature
- Ava’s sculptural works are often created in collaboration with bees
- Her eclectic pieces are informed by traditionally female crafts, including embroidery
- She seeks to celebrate the natural world with her art
Ava Roth’s multifaceted artistic practice is rooted in her passion for crafting and love of nature. Obsessed with making as a child, she later majored in urban environmentalism at university before pivoting to a full-time art practice in 2000. Ava is a self-taught artisan versed in many crafts and mediums, including painting, beadwork, bookbinding and more. When she discovered encaustic in 2013, she found a way to unify her diverse approach. “I realised I could combine my interests in thread work and sewing with the beeswax, which brought several practices together,” she says. In 2018, meeting and training with master beekeeper Mylee Nordin would prove to be another pivotal moment, enabling Ava to develop her signature comb-laden works, created when she places her art pieces directly into hives for the bees to work on.
Discover her work
INTERVIEW
My practice is a process-led inter-species collaboration. I create composite objects in dialogue with thousands of local honeybees. The process is relational and responsive, and it draws on a rich history of traditional female crafts such as sewing, embroidery, weaving and basketry.
Years ago, I fell in love with encaustic art and was immersed in beeswax and its gorgeous qualities. My curiosity about the bees producing it and the pivotal role they play led me to beekeeping, which shaped my practice as I started experimenting with putting pieces directly into hives.
I have learned important things about energy equilibrium. My art requires me to balance my and the bees’ energy so that there is a commensurate offering of our life energy. Years of commitment to this mindset have deeply influenced my human relationships, too.
When my pieces find resonance with viewers, I hope that their thoughts swirl around things like the beauty of the natural world, the beauty of our own handiwork and the value of seeing, relating and caring for all life.
