Saprophytes
Saprophytes
This work was made during a residency and exhibition at Hilsbach Kunst Kultur in July 2017 and featured in an exhibition titled “By Cooling Shade.” This handmade paper is made from polypore mushrooms found in forests near Hilsbach and Berlin. I am using text along with weeds, plants, flowers, and other organic material found near Hilsbach to create an image which causes friction between the text and materials used. The words are pulled from a forestry terminology, but in English they have double meanings. The words are related to the cultivation, control, and commodification of the forest. At play are handmade processes, human understanding, and capitalist substructure.
All works are sunprints using sun-sensitive dye on handmade paper created from a combination of fungi.
Species include: Trametes versicolor, Trametes hirsuta, Stereum hirsutum, Piptoporus betulinus, Polyporus squamosus, Fomitopsis pinicola, Daedalea quercina, Tapinella atrotomentosa, and others.
Jessica Langley (b. 1981, USA) is a multimedia artist. She has exhibited her work internationally, and has been an artist-in-residence in numerous programs including Skaftfell Center of Visual Art in Iceland, Askeaton Contemporary Art in Ireland, the SPACES World Artist Program in Cleveland, and the Digital Painting Atelier at OCAD-U in Toronto. She was a recipient of the J. William Fulbright Scholarship for research in Iceland, and earned her MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2008. She is an amateur mycologist, and her artwork and writing have been published in the New York Mycological Society Newsletter, New American Paintings, NPR, Hyperallergic, and Temporary Art Review.