Benoit Godin | The Glorious Diversity of Life
Benoit Godin
The Glorious Diversity of Life
FOCUS GALLERY
January 9 - 31, 2026
Opening Reception: January 9, 5-7pm
Colour, colour, colour… I crave colour! After decades of sorting through drab samples of dirt and debris in search of cryptic Aleocharine beetles, I yearn for bright colours. These tiny beetles that are best found under a stereoscope are various shades of brown and black. In these long winter nights, bright colours are what I need, and therefore what I have painted.
So many times, what I thought to be a leg turned out to be a twig and vice versa. Cubism is the best approach to convey this misinterpretation; where a foot can be an eye, a worm can be an ear, or a mouth can be a leg. Elements in my paintings are reappropriated from one creature to another one when seen from different perspectives. Under microscopy, there is very little depth of field and everything looks flat. This is what I have tried to express in these paintings.
The biomorphic forms are all intermingled to convey the continuity of life in all its diversity. Just as with microscopy, where one has to change magnification to view different aspects of small creatures, here you can change your point of view to discover new motifs and figures. I hope you have fun searching and finding new forms of life – isn’t life glorious!?
BENOIT GODIN
From a young age Benoit has been fascinated by the biological world in general, and especially with insects.
Trained as a biologist, he worked for the federal government for over twenty years doing environmental assessment. Through that work he became aware of a little-known group of tiny beetles known as obscure rove beetles (Aleocharinae) and he began to study them in his spare time. As an expert citizen he contributed to expand what is known about rove beetles in Canada. He co-authored numerous scientific papers which described over 20 new species in the Yukon and Canada, and two textbooks on Aleocharinae: one on those in British Columbia and one on those in the Canadian Arctic and Subarctic.
His first participation in a major art show was in collaboration with artist Luann Baker-Johnson in the spring of 2024 in the Yukon Arts Centre exhibit, “Aleocharinae: An Entomologist and an Artist”.
Both the YAC exhibit and the paintings in this Arts Underground solo show have been inspired by Benoit’s work with rove beetles.
This Arts Underground show celebrates the painting style that Benoit developed partly because of the look of the hodgepodge of juxtaposed pieces in the unsorted beetle samples he spent many hours viewing.
Past Exhibitions
