LIVING SCULPTURE 

 

In March 2020, at the start of the Covid19 pandemic, I created a giant wearable monkey head out of cardboard and hot glue: an isolation mask, that would lead me on a journey through personal experiences of anxiety, depression and grief, to break the isolation, forge new connections and ultimately find me collaborating with Fungi.

 
 

Forced into an entirely new world of isolation, I’d been thinking a lot about personal experiences of grief, depression, anxiety, of growing up in an environment where communicating your internal emotional struggles was positively discouraged and all the subsequent additional suffering that creates; the overwhelming loneliness and isolation. As I’ve progressed though my life I’ve come to understand how vital, particularly for me, connection, community, communication and the sharing of emotional experiences is for keeping our minds and bodies healthy.

These themes were something I wanted to begin exploring in my work, particularly through my animal head sculptures, but pieces I made weren’t reaching the right resolve and I hit a wall with where to take them.

Then Louie Schwartzberg’s mesmerising ‘Fantastic Fungi’ documentary entered my life, introducing me to the seemingly limitless potential of fungi. Eager to understand more, I read Merlin Sheldrake’s wondrous book ‘Entangled Life’ and it was the descriptions of his plans to allow Pleurotus mycelium to feast on a copy of his book that sparked the idea that I might be able to fruit mushrooms from my cardboard sculptures. 
The thought of mycelium blanketing my animal head sculptures in white and the possibility of mushrooms emerging tied in so many threads of thought: metaphors of wrapping someone in cotton-wool to protect them, of networks, the importance of connection, of communities working together to prosper, of psilocybin’s powers to dissolve the self, to forge new neural pathways, to heal minds and souls.

As repurposing materials is central to my work, I loved the idea that the old materials (cardboard) would be the food for new life (fungi) to grow. The sculptures could explore the dualities of life and death, beauty and decay, connection and disconnect in a very real way.

It took me months to achieve results and required great patience I’ve not had to muster in my practice before, but the process is truly magical and each experiment has opened up new directions, new lines of thought and connected me with ever more people who share a passion for this fascinating organism.

 

VENICE
In 2022 my ‘Living Sculpture’ project won me a full scholarship on a 2-week contemporary art programme at The European Cultural Academy in Venice, selected by Danielle Krysa - The Jealous Curator, which connected me with fellow artists and curators from across the globe, giving me the opportunity to explore the possibilities for how my project could evolve the deeper I delve into it.

Visiting Venice and thinking of the history of Venetian masks, I was inspired to attempt a mycelium mask - The Wolf mask below was the first experiment, working with pink oyster mushrooms. The mushrooms fruited in a really fascinating way but unfortunately in became contaminated with blue/green mould … a risk when not working in a lab environment!

TIME-LAPSE VIDEO

In 2023 I teamed up with friend Rua Acorn, to document the entire process through time-lapse photography. A process of exploration for both of us, we managed to capture 2 pieces: one through it’s final stage of mushroom fruiting, and another from inoculation right through to the fruited mushrooms wilting and drying out.

WHOLE ANIMAL SCULPTURE

For the E17 Art Trail 2024, I built 2 whole animal sculptures: a Wallaby and a Fennec Fox, with the hope of creating a live mushroom-fruiting installation where visitors could see in person how the sculptures grow and change across the 2 weekends. Sadly the Fennec Fox got too badly contaminated during the inoculation process and the resulting mould was far too foul smelling to continue. I interrupted the process and let it dry out so it would be possible to include it in the exhibition. The Wallaby, however, grew beautifully and I’ve been documenting it’s evolution for several weeks, as bright pink mushrooms grew and faded, and further mushrooms grew and faded. It will eventually be dried out and become a static sculpture to join the collection housed in my studio.

 

PRINTS

If you like the look of my mycelium experiments, you can find two limited edition signed giclée prints available to buy from my shop.