Flies, 2002

Renowned for his Bic ball-point pen drawings and ornate sculptures, Jan Fabre is a multi-faceted artist with works spanning across such mediums as sculpture, stage design and choreography. Heaven of Delight is perhaps one of his most notable works – for this piece, Fabre assembled around 1.4 million Jewel Beetle shells in various patterns to adorn the ceiling of Palais Royal in Brussels; Fabre has stated that he has always been fascinated by Jewel Beetles, admiring them for their ‘beauty, memory and ability to process information’. Fabre uses a wide range of unorthodox materials including blood, tears, bones and taxidermied animals; his works attempt to explore the relationships between science and art, and often challenge ‘impossible’ feats – The Man Who Measures the Clouds is just one among many works that deals with the notion of the impossible. (Artist website)