Project description

My Mushroom Muse

A Sweet Jane Fashion Textiles Collection

 

I have taken my inspiration from the altered reality that the photographic image creates and how, on closer examination, this ‘reality’ may differ to what was actually in front of the camera. Through My Mushroom Muse collection of printed fashion textiles I analyze photography and how, in collaboration with the photographers ‘gaze’, its mechanical and digital processes can create a unique narrative.

My Mushroom Muse Collection began during the first UK Covid lockdown in 2020, feeling separated from the world and nature outside I decided to bring nature inside and grow my own inspiration in the form of grey and pink oyster mushrooms at home. Once each day, at a specific time, I photographed the mushrooms using two different types of camera, a digital camera and an analogue camera. On examining the series of photographs, I realised that I had only captured a very small part of the growth and that most of it had been missed. I feel there is a lost beauty in the missed pieces of this narrative. Through my work in the collection I have imagined and virtualised this lost beauty, blending fiction with authenticity through a use of mood, colour and composition my collection creates its own narrative that celebrates the creativity procured from this photographic collaboration between female gaze and photographic lens.

Oyster Mushroom Image
Copy Copy Print Textile
Copy Copy Print Textile
Copy Copy Print Textile
Copy Copy Print Textile
Copy Copy Print Textile
Copy Copy Print Textile
Copy Copy Print

For this group of textiles I was inspired by the indexical qualities of the analogue photographic image. Just like a footprint in the sand is a sign that someone was once there, an analogue photograph is a sign as to what was in front of the lens at the time the photograph was taken. I  visualized this analogue process as a flattening of information into the photographic image. Some information is missed along the way or manipulated by an interference. To capture this within my prints I used a process of scanning, copying and reprinting my images using a photocopier machine, adding coloured filters and sometimes opening the lid of the machine while using it created an interference within the piece. This was to represent the discrete image that a camera creates and how the photographic medium transfers its own medium specific qualities onto the image it attempts to copy.

Copy Copy Print Textile
Copy Copy Print Textile
A Pixel Dream

While photographing an oyster mushroom growth using a digital camera, I began to think about how the image was being created through a group of pixels, for a pixel is a tiny dot or a square of colour which makes up a digital image. I began to imagine how these pixels were working together and what this might look like. Using a combination of manual screenprinting and digital printing I created a group of textiles that reflect what I imagine the digital images look like beyond what can be seen by the human eye.

A Pixel Dream Textile
My Female Gaze Textile
My Female Gaze

My work is very much inspired by concepts surrounding the female gaze and the female photographic perspective. I see my process of photographing the mushrooms day-by-day as a reflection of my own female mood and vision. Each photograph has its own story to tell of how I was feeling that day and this is expressed through a use of colour and composition within my printed textiles. For this group of textiles, I wanted to pay tribute to this female gaze and give it a voice!

My Female Gaze Textile
My Female Gaze Textile
A Colourful Hybrid

This group of textiles reflects on a bright, colourful and playful expression created by the camera and female gaze.  Using a playful mono-type form of  screen printing these textiles to replicate the contingent value of the photographic image. Each time I printed a colour this would then determine the placement of the next colour, creating the piece in the moment. I used bright florescent colours that I imagined would be embedded within the digital images of my mushroom photographs.

A Colourful Hybrid Textile
A Colourful Hybrid Textile
A Colourful Hybrid Textile
A Colourful Hybrid Textile
A Colourful Hybrid Textile
A Colourful Hybrid Textile
Awards
Black Church Print Studio Graduate Award, The John Kelly RHA Award, 2016 The Graphic Studio Gallery Graduate Award, 2016 The Printmakers Gallery Award, 2016 Shortlisted for the RHA School Graduate Award, 2016 Shortlisted for the A4 Sounds DIT Graduate Award, 2016 Longlisted for the RDS Visual Art Awards, 2016
Skills & Experience
  • Creative use of digital printing with an understanding of engineered printing and repeat printing
  • Experimental use of Screen Printing with a great understanding of halftone imagery and binders
  • Photography using both digital and analogue cameras and techniques
  • Great understanding of digital design platform Adobe Suite (InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, Premiere Rush, After Effects)
  • Innovative and contemporary in approach to creating expressive design concepts
  • BA Fine Art (First Class Hons) Dublin School of Creative Arts (2012 – 2016)
Related topics
Analogue
Digital
Emotion
Gender
Narrative
Process
Textiles - MFA
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