I'm Dying but I Want Bumblebee

In Gabby Prado’s first solo exhibition with Cartellino, hope is a bumblebee. A small, fleeting, and fragile being that curiously, still perseveres. Fluttering from flower to flower in ardent duty, beating its wings in purposeful flight. All amidst a world that is crumbling and threatening its demise.

The show takes off from Prado’s milieu. For her, it is a world rife with suffering—a violence that is slowly encoding itself in her psyche. “I want to give up everything because I’m very tired of dealing with the ugly world,” she shares.

I’m Dying but I Want Bumblebee sees the artist respond to this context through hope, persevering. Her chosen language is spring, its flowers and bees capturing a tenor of life and hope. “I want something that makes me happy—dancing and honey are like Gatorade that recharges my energy”.

More specifically, Prado likens herself to a flower that seeks the energizing caress of a bumblebee. “I think of myself as a happy flower, paying attention to the mysterious spirit—a bumblebee—to give me happy moments.”

In this regard, the dancer-artist wields the tool that she knows best: abstraction rendered through color and flow. Her lines still run, twirl, and pirouette with force. But this time, they come in the hues of spring. Soft pinks, yellows, blues, and greens that together make her garden of hope.

I’m Dying but I Want Bumblebee is Prado’s answer to a cruel world—a prayer for honey, life, and hope.

— Chesca Santiago