These insects aren’t bugged by technology

AT first glance, Long Beach-based painter Paul Paiement’s intricately detailed insects look as if they might have crawled off the pages of your grandmother’s 1945 Encyclopaedia Britannica. But a closer look at his work in “Hybrids 5.0” at L.A.’s Raid Projects reveals these creepy crawlies to be decidedly futuristic.

In addition to their colorful pigments, Paiement’s bugs are superimposed with images of gadgets (think iPods, cellphones and, in one case, a boombox) and renamed with a nod to their wired counterparts. Take, for example, the blue and green moth-GPS hybrid, or “H Sparganothis Globalpositionsystemeus.”

“I’m really interested in the clash between worlds,” Paiement says. “Time plays a major role in this, because insects have been around forever and they’ve evolved very little, but we’re living in a world of technology where things are flashing by so quickly that our phones are outdated within weeks after we buy them.”

Though the insects are classically rendered in egg tempera, the electronic overlays are depicted by a series of dots created with wooden dowels. The effect alludes to the halftone screens of vintage ads and the digital pixels of modern photography. “The strategy is to keep the natural world and the world of technology separate, yet have them read as one,” Paiement says.

-- Lea.L[email protected]

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

‘HYBRIDS 5.0’

WHERE: Raid Projects, 602 Moulton Ave., L.A.

WHEN: Opens Saturday

PRICE: Free

INFO: (323) 441-9593, www.raidprojects.com