In the next to final qualifying round, the remaining five artists competed for one of three spots in the final competition. The winner will get a gallery show and $100k. Not bad as far as inspiration goes. The challenge was to create something inspired by a trip to a nature preserve and to also use something collected at the preserve as a component of the work.

Like him or not, one of the most (maybe even THE most) interesting artists on the show is Miles. He is weird, quirky, unedited, and yes perhaps a bit manipulative. But, I happen to like his work.  As it turns out, he made it into the final three with his nature-inspired work “Fungus Study, Vol.  #1″ He found a dried mushroom of some sort (couldn’t really tell what it was) on a piece of dead wood and used that to launch into a rather tangential interpretation. It was cool though, and he included the whole fungus on a little shelf as part of his installation.

Here is what Jeanne Greenberg, one of the judges, had to say about Miles in one of her blog posts:

On the show I say that Miles’s work is without humor. Yet, behind the scenes he projects a sinister wit. His obsession with poisonous or dangerous materials pops up episode after episode, and his hole poking contraption was, in retrospect, rather absurd. I stand corrected, his humor is hidden behind a dry practice. Miles starts with a kernel of an idea, and then grows it out. This additive approach can be limiting if the starting idea, in this case the parasitic fungus, is all you have. Especially given his self-described incapacity to go beyond a set system. Hoping he breaks out of his mold (ha, ha).

Bravo makes it hard to get images off their site and I am sure this is a copyrighted image, but since I am using it in a review of sorts of their show, I think this low resolution image is fair use.

Fungus Study Vol.1 #1 by Miles from "Work of Art" Episode 109 (Barbara Nitke/Bravo)

So if you if you are a fan of art and appreciate creative processes check out “Work of Art.” I think you’ll get a kick out of it.

Garden Mushrooms and Bird Feeders

Bird Feeders from JJ Potts

A tulip garden full of ceramic mushrooms caught my eye. As I looked around further, I noticed there were some rather interesting mushroom bird feeders as well. They looked like they were made of similar material, and I suspected they were from the same designer. A tag on one of the bird feeders identified it as the product of “JJ Potts”.

I asked the proprietor if the glassy-looking shrooms in the tulip garden were from the same manufacturer, but she didn’t know. I figured they had to be though, so when I got home I did a search for JJ Potts. Sure enough, JJ is into mushroom objects all right. Just who is JJ Potts?

JJ Potts

Well, it’s not a person at all. JJ Potts is a company formed by two brothers, Jeremy and Adam Neff, from Salt Lake City, Utah. It’s  a story of a little project that went well an got turned into something bigger.

“My brother and I made the first Shroomyz in a high school pottery class 9 years ago,” explains Jeremy. “A family friend who owned a garden center asked us to make some garden mushrooms that she would try to sell at her garden center. They started selling really well, so we opened up a little factory in the garage. The garage led to a rented space and we needed help so we hired our friends.”

Shroomyz from JJ Potts

Most of the friends have since got “real” jobs after graduating from college, but the Neff brothers still have a crew of part time college students working their way though school.

According to Jeremy, it’s been a long haul for both of them.

“My brother finally graduated just last week with a degree in material science engineering at the ripe age of 31 and I am still working on a geology degree and have a couple of years left. I’m now 27.”

“We’ve had our ups and downs for sure but we’ve grown into more than we ever thought. We currently employ about 15 people and sell our products all over the country.”

The bird feeders are nice and designed to be hung off the ground. The smaller mushrooms are called shroomyz and come in a variety of sizes and styles. The pictures don’t do them justice. When you see them you’ll probably have to have one (or a whole flush). JJ Potts only sells wholesale. They might be available from your local garden supplier. Contact JJ Potts to see if there is a reseller near you.

Petri Dish by Klari Reis

It is possible that leaving an agar plate laying around the lab for a month could produce something akin to art. Or, microbes can be deliberately arranged on a nutrient surface to produce interesting images a la Nial Hamilton. Then again, when it comes to Petri dish art, there is no reason why any living organisms need be included at all, or even real Petri dishes for that matter.

Meet Artist Klari Reis

Artist Klari Reis has created a series of biology-inspired works that invoke the beauty and endless variety of microorganisms, without any naturally-occurring materials. Who is Klari Reis?

Klari Reis received her M.A. in painting from the City and Guilds of London Art School in 2004. She is currently painting in her native Northern California where the presence of many of the world’s top pharmaceutical companies and research institutions serves as her muse.

Klari Reis is an artist, not a scientist, and was trained as an architectural draftsman and designer. She has a penchant for clean forms and grids, geometric organization, the ‘containing line’ and finely-wrought surfaces. She considers it an advantage that she is not a classically trained painter who might be too invested in traditional themes or media.

A Petri Dish For Every Day of the Year

Petri Dish by Klari Reis

Klari’s latest project is a collection of 365 “Petri dishes”–one for each day of the year. All the artwork is created from an epoxy polymer; there are no actual cultures used in the art. The plastic is dyed with pure pigments and dyes and sometimes both water-based and oil based paints.

Although the series does  have a correlation with the days of the year, she did not produce one per day. “No,” she explains, “unfortunately, I worked on a few almost everyday for a year. I then picked my favorites for each day of the year.”

Some of them look like they were intentionally designed to look like fungi. Sometimes this was intentional, other times, it’s just the way it turned out. That’s how art works.

“I occasionally try to make a Petri dish painting look exactly like an image I have been inspired by.  However, I usually like to work just from memory and do my best to recall the natural formations seen and the way the shapes and reactions made me feel.”

Petri Dish by Klari Reis

Biology Inspires Art

Reis is known for her biological inspiration. She previously produced a series of one hundred images based on drugs. Microbially inspired works seem like a natural follow on to that. When asked about it, Reis seemed to agree.

“My work for the past six years has revolved around cellular imagery and natural formations. Evolving into working with Petri dishes seemed like a logical next step to emphasis the overall theme in my artwork. I have been creating groupings of small Petri dish paintings for two years now. However, I am always working on large scale paintings at the same time. I am currently manufacturing large scale Petri dishes with a 45-inch diameter to create larger scale works with the same depth as their smaller counterparts.”

Reis uses brightly colored dyes to emphasize the different elements of an actual living culture. The results can be strikingly similar to real colonies on a plate.

Petri Dish by Klari Reis

She studied organism growing in Petri dishes at Kings College in London and at St. Thomas’ Hospital, before starting the project. More recently she also did research for her art at two different South San Francisco Biotech firms. ”I also own my own microscope and do my own small experiments at home,” she adds.

I asked Klari to explain a little more about her relationship with these biotech companies that  she had cooperation from. “At all locations I looked at everything I could get my hands on under the microscope. At first, focusing on cellular reactions to pharmaceuticals. These days I am inspired by naturally occurring patterns and formations in our bodies, and elsewhere.”

Petri Dish by Klari Reis

You can learn more about the inspiration for Kkari’s work at her website klariart.com. Her Petri dish installations are on display in a number of art collections around the world, including those of the Royal Family of Abu Dhabi, the Keck Graduate Institute in California, and the MEG Center in Oxford England. Three hundred Petri paintings are on public display at the Peninsula Shanghai Hotel and, if you are ever on a Royal Caribbean cruise, be sure to check out the 1,500 Petri paintings that are featured in a large installation aboard the ship Oasis of the Seas.

The garden, a display of the plant kingdom in light, sound, movement and texture, uses plant materials associated with natural decay to demonstrate nature’s ability to reuse and recycle.

According to one of the judges, it was “simply outstanding.” The display, Life and Death,  was entered by the The Christchurch Botanic Gardens.

Another report describes the award-winning display as a “garden of fungi, mould and lichen on show in a dimly-lit marquee.” And, in Local team weeds out international players, we learn a little more:

Visitors to the garden enter through a “glow-worm” cave and their first view is through a 2.5-metre-high waterfall. An array of fungi (some picked in the wild last weekend), lichen, moss, liverwort and ferns carpet the floor of the exhibit, which has a six-minute cycle of changing lights and sounds. Judge Penny Cliffin said the garden had an amazing array of fungi and an “interesting commentary on decomposition as a basis of life under the ground”. Hawker got the inspiration partly from his mouldy coffee cup.

The nicest write-up on this event is Christchurch Botanic Gardens Wins Supreme Ellerslie Award. Unfortunately, none of these articles offers a very impressive view of the work. If by some chance, a reader in New Zealand happens to have snapped a few good shots, it would be great if you would send a couple to MycoRant for the world to see (hint, hint). The best view of the work can be found at the show’s image gallery (click over on the viewer to see it).

It’s nice to see that people can appreciate a well done, artistically presented work, that highlights the importance of fungi and other “lower” life forms. The official show press release announcing and describing Life and Death was released on March 10th.

Dr. Niall Hamilton

Jackson Pollock dripped paint on canvas.  Picasso, Braque, Duchamp and the other cubists broke the world into little rectangular planes. Andy Warhol set up a few soup cans. Niall Hamilton has his own style of art. A Petri dish of agar is his canvas, spores are his paint, and a sterile loop is his brush.

I first saw Niall’s work at microbialart.com. Then I saw it posted at the website of Seed magazine. I immediately thought, now here is a guy that I would like to know more about.

"Butterfly", Cladosporium herbarum, Fusarium sp., and Rhodotorula sp.

Niall Hamilton (it’s pronounced just like “Neal”) currently practices medicine, having recently completed medical school. He works in internal medicine, and it’s keeping him fairly busy. Hopefully not too busy to occasionally dabble with a flamed loop.

How exactly does one get started in making images from living matter? Niall explains his start this way, “I wanted to create a unique greeting card that reflected my passion for my work and my passion for science. The design worked and looked pretty good, so I continued trying to create interesting images.”

Aspergillus zen garden

This kind of art is unusual and interesting, especially since the exact form of the final work cannot be completely controlled. It might be a bit risky too–especially for someone who doesn’t know much about microorganisms or how to properly handle fungi.

Is making microbial art something anyone can do? Dr. Hamilton is clear on this.  “To be honest, I would say no. There are many potentially pathogenic microbes out there and also with the creation of the microbial pieces, there should be proper provision for their safe disposal (i.e. autoclave). I think it would be unsafe for untrained individuals, especially outside of the laboratory setting, to pursue this type of microbial art.”

Turtles

Several of the common environmental microbes can cause disease, some fairly serious illnesses.  “You’ll note the majority of the other microbial artists are trained microbiologists or biochemists, ” he adds.

Dr. Hamilton uses his own fungi on his plates. “I isolate them myself,” he explains, “I worked as an industrial and environmental microbiologist, so the species I use are all environmental isolates, but as mentioned above, many of these can pose health hazards. All my art was done within a fully-equipped microbiology laboratory.”

Apple Tree

Hamilton uses both fungi and bacteria in his creations, and each no doubt has its own advantages and disadvantages. “I have to say I’m rather envious of other artists’ work with bioluminescent bacteria or slime molds,” he offers, adding, “both of which I think are very visually impressive.  But, I haven’t had the opportunity to work with them (simply because I haven’t isolated them). Bacteria I like for the fast growth and clean edges, but they generally are a lot more limited in range of color and texture than the fungi.”

Dr. Hamilton is pretty busy with his hospital work these days. Here’s hoping he finds the time to continue making fungally-derived works of art, and find new ways to use microfungi to create evocative images. An agar plate is a simple thing, yet look at what a creative mind can do with one. Note: All works depicted in this post are copyright Niall Hamilton and are used with his permission.

Aspergillus (literally!)