Month: September 2021

Sculptures Pt.2

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I decided to paint the mushrooms on this figure gold. Inspired by Kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold, whereby embracing the flaws creates a stronger more beautiful piece of art.

I like to think of it as embracing the female form, in whatever form it may take. All bodies are beautiful.

Progression Idea:

  • take it further with castings of real bodies
  • perhaps call for models who have past injuries, illnesses (mastectomies, amputations)
  • to show that no matter what happens, we are still beautiful, it is still our body

Portrait Idea

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A very rough mock up of an idea for portraits that depict mushrooms “growing” from the face.

Created using photoshop with images taken from Google.

I could create this using photography, and potentially also painting.

A further idea is to take portrait shots and manipulate them so that actual mould will grow on them: leave them outside, apply food to them to encourage mould growth. Similar to the works of Seung-Hwan Oh.

https://www.seunghwan-oh.com/

Idea notes

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Do we beautify the death of women?

Women often found in fields/woods/parks

Death in nature

Ophelia

Black dahlia

Portraits of women: mushrooms coming from eyes, mouth etc. scared/worried expression. Disappearing, melting back into the earth, overtaken by death and wasting away. Symbolising that we are helpless to this overcoming growth of violence towards us.

Plinth: A white plinth, plain on three sides and the top, one side will have a mass of mushrooms growing from it. To symbolise the fact that people turn a blind eye to violence against women, it is easy not to see it. But it is festering behind closed doors. 

Uncontrollable, growing unseen and unheard. Engulfing, eradicating 

Like getting the bread from the cupboard to find that it is mouldy. It comes without knowing, without warning. Even if one survives it stays and creeps

Plinth Idea

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An idea for a display method:

A white plinth, that is plain on three sides and the top.

On one side a mass of blackened mushrooms is growing.

Portrays the fact that the public/media turn a blind eye to the ongoing plight of women in day to day life.

Everything seems fine on the surface, yet “behind closed doors” it is festering away, ever growing and spreading.

 

 

Linking Ideas

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The links I have found between my fungi project and violence towards women, both current/past.

The similarities and themes I wish to convey through my art work:

  • the slow creeping growth of mould is silent, engulfing and unpreventable. Violence towards women is much the same, in the way that it is something that has existed for centuries. It feels unstoppable and that nothing will ever stop it from occurring. It feels suffocating, a slow creeping dread. Similar to the growth of mould.
  • relates the two topics to death and the end. Mushrooms grow on things that are dying/rotting.
  • conveys the sense of helplessness towards the situation; it is going nowhere. It is stagnant and mouldering with time
  • It gives a small sense of renewal, the cycle of life after death. A potentially mild glimmer of hope

 

Words of relation:

  • engulfing
  • suffocating
  • growth
  • unstoppable
  • unpreventable
  • death
  • renewal
  • hopeless
  • leaching
  • stagnant

Link to violence towards women

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Recent events have caused me to become ever more concerned with violence shown towards women. In public and also in their own homes.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-58739421

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-58748885

Links above are to two current stories: the murders of two women in London, Sarah Everard and Sabina Nessa. Both women were approached while alone and both ended up killed.

From Everard’s Vigil:

  • “could have been anyone”
  • “we have all felt unsafe when it is dark outside”
  • “stand in solidarity with all women”
  • “shame on you” chant as policed removed women from vigil

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58750386

Ms Harman said women’s confidence in the police “will have been shattered”.

 

I find a relation between the deep yet unseen connection that women share with each other; and the hidden underground network of fungi that links them all to each other from afar. I want to try and show this relation through my art within this project.

Sculptures

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Experimenting with small scale sculptures of the female form, entwined with mushrooms. Playing on a quote from “fantastic fungi” that “we are all made up of mushrooms”, and a part where it was stated that we inhale the spores of mushrooms with every breath. They are flowing through our body every second of the day.

  • touching on beauty in death, mild comfort in the fact that we will be returned to the earth, and the cycle will repeat

Reading Materials/Relevant Artists

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Ongoing list of readings:

Merlin Sheldrake – Entangled Life

Anna Tsing – The mushroom at the end of the world

Gregory Kenicer – Plant magic

Bloomsbury – Concise mushroom guide

 

Artists:

https://www.seunghwan-oh.com/

https://gagosian.com/artists/jenny-saville/

Alison Pollack – macro mushroom photography

The Art of Mould

Daniele Del Nero – Grows mould on model houses https://gemmaschiebefineart.wordpress.com/tag/daniele-del-nero/

https://www.stacylevy.com/mold-garden

http://polona-tratnik.com/

Week 1 – Initial ideas

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To begin with I created a mind map to note down initial ideas for a project I have been thinking about.

During lock down I watched a documentary called “Fantastic Fungi” which ignited several ideas of artworks focusing on/featuring fungi.

Main points of fascination:

  • hidden networks
  • new life in death
  • their spore release
  • the deadly nature of some fungi
  • their shape/structure
  • the colours and textures
  • the link between surrounding trees
  • underground structures