art blog

And shriek through my endless nights

I paw at Windows and passers by

But yet to seek what they well find

Clocks may tick, but time does not fly

As the raven doth peck and scold my eyes

I fear not death but the end of life

As my hands lose grip for the last time

my statement of intent for my mushrooms and religion project

My project depicts mushrooms consuming churches. The inspiration came from my own love of mushroom imagery in art and my history with religion. I was raised catholic and converted to Irish Celtic paganism later in life. As an avid history enthusiast, I researched heavily on Irish Celtic history and how Christian leaders have stripped the land and people of their culture and traditions. In this research I discovered a significant use of mushroom imagery and psylocibin use in rituals and other practises.

It is theorised that the use of psylocibin lead to many early forms of religion across the world the earliest direct artistic representation of this is a nine-thousand-year-old cave painting by the ancient African tassili tribe. This depicts a man covered in mushrooms growing from his body and a bee head. This is thought to be one of the earliest depictions of religion and religious rituals. A thousand years later a carving was created in the caves of cuela (spain) of two people eating mushrooms thought to be psilocybin mushrooms.

A lot of the information on the religious use of mushrooms has been lost due to the rise of the holy roman empire. As they were determined to convert everyone to Christianity many other religions and religious practices were forcibly erased from our history through burning of information, executions, outlawing other religions and assimilation of people to Christianity through forced religious education, appropriation of the previous religious holidays and practices. The use of psilocybin as a religious practice did not survive this colonisation.

I chose to depict churches crumbling and mushrooms taking over to represent these monuments to a religion, that oppressed and erased thousands of years of traditions, built on stolen land being re-claimed and consumed by mushrooms, something that was used to worship.

pride dice!!

d20s spelling out 800815 (boobies) with some pride flags!

With my work, I hope to create a piece that explores the feeling of gender dysphoria and medical transitioning. I hope to do this through the use of moth imagery as well as anatomical drawings from medical textbooks. With this, I aim to show both the grotesque and discomforting feeling of dysphoria and the freedom that comes with transitioning.