Los Angeles artist John Knuth uses flies as collaborators to create paintings, with over one million insects contributing to his current exhibition 'The Hot Garden' at Hollis Taggart Downtown in New York. Inspired by flyspecks he noticed on a windowsill in 2005, Knuth orders fly larvae by the thousands, letting them hatch on canvases where their regurgitation deposits pigment. The show features works priced between $700 and $20,000, and a custom enclosure at the gallery allowed visitors to see the flies working live during the opening. Knuth's fly paintings gained viral attention in 2013 after a video by the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art received over 100,000 views, helping launch his career.
The exhibition marks a personal and artistic rebirth for Knuth, who lost his home and 25 years of work in the Eaton Fire that devastated Altadena. The fly paintings, which he credits with enabling him to buy his house, now support his family as they recover from the disaster. The show also includes a collaborative piece with his young son, Mateo, titled 'Mateo Knuth, the best painte'. This story matters because it highlights how artists can find creative resilience in the face of climate-fueled tragedy, while also challenging conventional notions of artistic authorship by enlisting non-human collaborators.