Spider-Man: Brand New Day has just exited most cinemas, but Logan has its own Spider-man in Timothy Lee.
The Slacks Creek artist is the owner of Captured Spider Web Creations and creates intricate art pieces using real taxidermy insects from around the world.
Specimens include insects from South East Asia and South America to those found in his own backyard, with Mr Lee often using real spider webs from his own garden for his art pieces.
“I use real spiderwebs and real insect specimens from all over the world, and I try to tell a story or evoke some sort of an emotion,” Mr Lee said.
“The spiderwebs, you can guarantee that all the spiderwebs are one-off creations. No two are alike. They’re just like fingerprints, you know?”
Mr Lee’s pieces normally range in price from $30 to $500, with his most expensive artwork featuring a $200 Hercules beetle and selling for $4500 dollars.
“I did a commission piece for a husband and wife down in Victoria, and it was a piece 1m wide by 1.3m tall containing exactly 56 different species of beetles,” he said.
Mr Lee works with a wide variety of insects, from exotic Devil’s Flying Mantises, Tarantula hawk wasps, Hercules beetles and Atlas moths, to local tarantulas and orb weavers.
“Spiders, tarantulas, they’re always interesting to work with and, funnily enough, I’d say I was an arachnophobe before I started doing this business full time. Now that I deal with them, I only deal with dead ones, so I’m okay with that. But if the phone goes off while I’m pinning one, it still startles me!”
Mr Lee started off his insect journey after selling his woodworking business.
“I’ve always been the artistic type, and have always been interested in insects, especially beetles and moths. About five years ago, I saw someone on YouTube trying to capture a spiderweb onto a canvas. I thought that I can give that a go, and I reckon I can do a better job.”
“I did start off just doing a butterfly in a frame and I got bored with that real quick. I wanted to bring in a more creative process, so I added custom paintings and spiderwebs in the backgrounds.”
“Some of my pieces can take more than a week, some of them can take a few hours.”
An art piece usually starts when Mr Lee sees an interesting item while visiting op shops with his wife, Michelle.
“Quite often, something will attract my eye in an op shop, a really unusual frame or a really unusual vessel of sorts. I’ve used things from toolboxes and glass vessels to cake stands for my artwork.
“I can see a story that I can tell within that piece, and then sometimes I’ll get an insect specimen, and I’ll go, ‘Yes, I know exactly what I want to do with that, now I need to find what I want to put it in.’ I generally work from both directions, either an insect first or the actual object that the insect’s going into.”
Mr Lee’s most unique pieces have included a vintage moisture collector from a industrial air system and a replica human skull using real calvarium clamps holding the skull together, received from his mortician sister.
With more than 11,000 followers on Facebook and 3000 on Instagram, Mr Lee also shows his progress on social media, sharing his challenges, exotic finds and knowledge of his craft, while selling his art pieces.
“I find that if I put my face in front of the video, that seems to help for some reason, because I don’t think it’s a terribly pretty face. But, I find that people like that interaction,” he said.
Mr Lee recently held his first workshop at Logan Art Gallery, teaching participants to relax, position and pin both a scorpion and a tarantula.
As for future plans, he plans to set up a website, do more workshops, attend more events such as the Oddities and Curiosities Expo at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre in November as well as the upcoming Cryptic Creations Show at Morayfield Park Leisure Centre on 26-27 September.
He is planning a large art exhibition of his insect art next year.
“I’m in the market for a macro photographer right now, someone who’s well-versed in Photoshop as well. I would like to do a large scale exhibition where I’d photograph my mechanical insects and blow them up to wall or poster size,” Mr Lee said.
“My main goal is to stand out from other taxidermists, not just be a wholesaler, or churning out 50 butterflies and 50 black and white frames in a week.”
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