Friday, September 11, 2009Hundreds of maggots have been rescued from becoming fishing bait and turned into abstract art on London's South Bank.
Animal behaviour experts from Manchester University held workshops where children daubed the blowfly larvae with paint and let them loose on canvas, as part of a festival about insects.
Modern versions of Jackson Pollock's famous "action paintings" were created at the "Pestival", according to the university's Matthew Cobb, who said he bought the maggots from a fishing tackle shop.
"We wanted to show children and grown-ups that maggots are cute and not scary and that they can make amazing patterns," he said.
"We just put the maggots in non-toxic paint, and they did the rest, leaving wriggling trails behind that look like Jackson Pollock's work."
About 120 children took part in maggot painting workshops last week, Mr Cobb went on.
Torches were used to produce colours of light which the maggots followed around the paper.
The tiny artists were then rinsed and released unharmed into a compost heap after their moment of fame.
The US artist Jackson Pollock was a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement, and pioneered the technique of pouring and dripping paint on to canvas.
http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?Maggots_make_art_like_Jackson_Pollock&in_article_id=736452&in_page_id=34
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