What's the first thing that you normally do when an insect crosses your path? If you're easily heeby-jeebied, perhaps you just raise your foot and crunch down with an eek and a prayer. Others may view a wayward bug as a potential food source or an entertainment-filled distraction. Of course, if the creepy crawler is fortunate enough to cross paths with an eco-sympathizer, then they are more likely than not relocated back into the wild with nary an antennae out of place.

Well, I pity the beetle fool who messes with Belgium artist Jan Fabre because instead of mercilessly snuffing them out or keeping them in a jar with a leaf inside or even roasting them with a little peanut oil and salt (as they do in Thailand), he obtains hundreds of thousands of Sternocera Acquisignata via university and open market connections which he then immortalizes in his works of art. Hmmm, on second thought, maybe that's not such a bad thing after all.

The shells of the abundant-in-numbers species -- which would normally be discarded -- are instead transformed by Fabre into some very adventurous and eye-catching pieces. Looking on the bright side of things, perhaps through his efforts, he has formed a one-man insect admiration society.

As he has noted of the constantly enduring, evolving, ever-adaptable beetle, "I seek to render the body spiritualized—the body reduced to a shell. We have internal skeletons and beetles have external skeletons. My sculptures are bodies built up of hundreds of scarabs, in other words, of hundreds of skeletons. Jewel beetles appear in Flemish vanitas paintings. They symbolize our passage to death, though death understood in the sense of a positive energy field..."

So, with rough artistic concepts worked out via ink on paper, he lays down the foundation of his beetle works, devising patterns and ultimate aesthically pleasing arrangements. As you can see, depending on the composition and positioning of each beetle, quite a wide range of visual effects are achieved ranging from earthy to magnetically opulent.

This is no passing fad for the Antwerp native -- in fact, he has been beetle collaging sculptures and studding various unusual surfaces with their bodies for well over a decade. Impressed by the fact that their shells are fade resistant and possess incredible durability thanks to their high chitin content, he has managed to create shimmering objects d'art that both amaze the masses and endure the normally unforgiving hands of time. 

His 'Skull With Budgerigar', created back in 2000, is more understated than his recent works but one can easily appreciate how he was laying the groundwork for the ostentatious artistic style that later emerged. Studded with earthtone jewel and click beetles as well as assorted ground up beetle shields, it is fascinating, textural and even just a little bit sad.

Warranting Fabre the most attention to date is 2002's Heaven of Delight, installed on the ceiling of the Hall of Mirrors at the Royal Palace in Brussels using 1.4 million jewel beetle shells. You see those green tinted panels? Yup...those are the deceased living out eternity in opulent splendor.

Planning the project took 3 years and the actual ceiling application a surprisingly brief 3 months thanks to a team of 29 assistants armed with copious amounts of glue.

Other examples of his work include glowing orbs, pottery urns, caskets, floors, seating -- all studded with recycled glimmering shimmering beetles.