Athos Burez, visual artist

In The Hoarders, ants take the lead: busily carrying off whatever they can find, or setting out on raids for sweets and jewellery. In the photographs they appear in close-up still lifes and portraits; in the wall sculptures the same procession continues across a series of resin panels in Byzantine arched forms, cast in soft, smoky gradients of colour, a line of ants marching through with their loot. The panels can be shown together, the line running on from one to the next, or each on its own.

A Still Life of Dead Game and Hunting revisits the hunting trophy of the baroque still life. In The Tale of the Hare and The Tale of the Duck, dried flowers and mushrooms grow from the animal’s belly, while small birds come to feed on their seeds – the whole scene to be preserved in a block of resin on a marble base, where it can no longer move or decay. Both works are still in progress.

Viktor Leestmans (1989) is a naturalist and taxidermist based in Deurne, Belgium. His life revolves around animals, insects and nature, and every connection between them. Largely self-taught, he started experimenting at seventeen, from setting butterflies, beetles and scorpions to preparing skeletons. He is one of the few people in the world who masters the Beauchêne technique, a two-hundred-year-old method in which skeletons, insects or crustaceans are mounted with space between each part. In a non-classical way, he uses natural materials to reconstruct new creatures, giving them a soul and a story.