Beetlemania

"I was phobic of insects growing up," said artist Christopher Marley. "The first half of my life, I could not stay far enough away from bugs." Yet today he travels around the world collecting bugs of all shapes and colors, to use in artwork that celebrates their beauty and diversity.

Jewel Beetle

Working as a fashion model for a dozen years, Marley traveled to a lot of exotic locations, and came across a lot of exotic insects . . . much to his distress. He said it was the legs that bothered him most: "It's the legs that propel them. It's the legs that get stuck on you. I mean, you can't get them off you once they're on you, you know?"

Kristina Swallowtail Butterfly

But, Marley says, he started looking at insects in a whole new way, as a design element. "And I just fell in love with them. And it became a real passion to display them in a way that is structural and architectural and clean and antiseptic, so that it's approachable." And thus, Marley's insect art was born.

In Borneo

Marley collecting insects with nets in Borneo. For years, he said, insects have been the only souvenirs he's sought in each new country he's visited.

Catch

An entire year's catch of one species. Marley says the money he pays local collectors helps protect fragile tropical ecosystems. "The only way you can damage or really adversely affect an insect population is by destroying its habitat or destroying its host plant," he said. "And that gives an economic incentive to people to preserve their habitat. . . . And so, you're actually preserving the species."

Composition

At his studio in Salem, Ore., Marley carefully turns his collected specimens into framed works of art. "I want to kind of juxtapose order and cleanliness and composition with the radical diversity of insects and their colors and their shapes and their patterns."

Brushfoot Butterflies

"Callicore" composed of Brushfoot Butterflies (Callicore and Catacore sp.) from Peru. "The outrageous array of color in otherwise identical organisms is, to me, endlessly engaging," Marley said.

Mosaic

Marley's "Coleoptera Mosaics" are modest representations of the unbelievable diversity found in beetles around the world, from Africa, Asia and Australia to North and South America. Marley thoughtfully tucks the legs beneath the beetles, so viewers can focus on the colorful, jewel-like bodies without thinking of them crawling about.

Giant Comet Moth

The Giant Comet moth (Argema mittrei) of Madagascar has the longest hind-wing tails of any Lepidoptera -- this one has an overall length of 10 13/16 inches.

"Solar Eclipse"

Marley said he usually emphasizes entire organisms in his pieces rather than insects' parts, but his symmetrical arrangement comprised of sulphur butterflies (Phoebis philea) from Peru is a departure.

"Damselfly Drift"

Marley composes these damselflies (Calopterygidae sp.) from Malaysia to accentuate a sense of their movement.

"Lumens"

"Lumens" features Morpho butterflies (Morpho sulkowski) from Peru. The colors of his specimens are unenhanced. "They are real bugs," he said. "We don't mess with the colors at all." He does hermetically seal the bugs so that they'll be preserved for eternity.

Stag Beetles & Brittle Stars

Left: A mosaic of stag beetles. Right: Unlike sea stars, whose locomotion is achieved by the undulation of tiny tubed feet, brittle stars or serpent stars (Ophiurida sp.) from the Philippines move quickly by wriggling their arms in approximated strides, resembling the movement of an octopus more than that of traditional starfish.

"Walking Leaf Cycle"

The Walking Leaf (Phyllium pulchrifolium) from Indonesia. Marley says what he calls "botanicals" mimic not only a species of plant but also the decay, disease or insect damage that plants inevitably experience. "The irony of a healthy insect masquerading as an insect-eaten version of the plant it feeds on is just one more piece of evidence pointing to the presence of a cosmic sense of humor."

Imperial White Spined Oysters

Marley also works with shells and fossils (pictured, Imperial White Spined Oysters from the South Pacific). "I've had this vision for a long time of, what would God's living room look like? I imagine that He'd have these framed pieces of all His prototypes, everything immaculately portrayed and perfectly clean and beautiful," Marley laughed. "I'm trying to create something that would look good in God's own living room!"