Xerces
The Xerces blue butterfly (Glaucopsyche xerces) was a native species of the coastal sand dunes of San Francisco, California, USA and was only formally described by Boisduval in 1852 - but declared extinct less than 100 years later, in the 1940s. It was the first butterfly documented to go extinct in North America because of human induced habitat change, secondary to urban development and soil disturbance. Xerces is painted with egg tempera with the rarest and most expensive pigment YInMn Blue (Yttrium, Indium & Manganese), only discovered in 2009. The work gives reverence to a true relic present for millennia and now lost forever.
2024 Xerces Egg tempera on board, 335 x 335 mm