Forces of Nature Gallery is launching with the work of Matthew Willey.

Artist Matthew Willey is painting 50,000 individual honey bees—the number in a healthy, thriving hive—in murals and art installations around the world. Willey founded The Good of the Hive Initiative in 2015 to raise awareness about the importance of honey bees and in the process has joined a global movement of artists igniting widespread passion and fascination for the natural world.

Twenty-one buzzing hives of awareness with over 5000 individually painted bees have been created to date. Willey has painted and exhibited bees at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington DC, Dag Hammarskjold Plaza in NYC and Burt’s Bees Global Headquarters in Durham, NC. He has collaborated with the World Council of Peoples for the United Nations (WCPUN), NYC Parks’ Art in the Parks and Friends of Dag Hammarskjold Plaza. He has presented at the United Nations, the Smithsonian Institution, the FAO in Washington DC, Burt’s Bees, the Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh, NC, the Embassies of France and Germany, Duke University and the Planetary Health Alliance Annual Meeting in Scotland.

His work has been featured extensively throughout media platforms including The New York Times, the Huffington Post, Veranda Magazine, the Washington Post, the NEA’s podcast, countless blogs and periodicals.