Mushroom Dance — Audrey

Mushroom Dance Mushroom Dance depicts a girl adorned with mushrooms, and to a large extent, becoming mushrooms. Many things inspired this piece, but I specifically wanted to play with the concept of beauty and decay. Everyday phenomena which directly contradict one another have always been of particular interest to me, so I wanted to use greens, and brighter colors synonymous with life to contrast the content of the piece.

While when beginning this piece, I was thinking of playing into more of a concept of isolation, I think the theme of decay fits better in light of the ongoing pandemic. So I pivoted to emphasize both the interconnected mycelium of mushrooms and their beauty but also transformation and decay. Another intention of the piece was to reference multi-species relationships. Despite the multiple relationships, whether its mushroom-mushroom, snake-human, or mushroom-human, it think the subject of this piece really reads as one entity.

The biggest inspiration for this piece came from an advertisement I saw for a video game online (Guilds of Ravnica). While I am not sure what the game is, or even what it’s about the art style was very focused on nature and humanoid creatures. In general, the goal of this piece (and what I hope it communicated) was a focus on the dichotomy between beauty and decay and a blurred line between differentiating humans and their surroundings.

MTG. (2018). Guilds of Ravnica Card Image Gallery. Retrieved April 19, 2020, from https://magic.wizards.com/en/products/guilds-ravnica/cards