ARTIST STATEMENT
Even in death, new life blooms in astounding and morbidly fascinating ways. My artwork seeks to explore this through the real-world genus of parasitic zombie fungi (cordyceps) by posing a hypothetical species, The Club-Head of Corruption (Cordyceps corruptionis). Inquiry into these fungi was triggered by a trip to Tamborine National park, where I discovered a huntsman infested with cordyceps, a rare sight. With reference to this, my recently deceased pet huntsman was mounted. The arrangement of rat/mouse skulls into rosettes along with jagged points forming fungi fruiting bodies adds a more threatening edge, exuding discomfort while retaining an organic appearance.
ARTWORK PROCESS
The bodies of various invasive species were collected. The simmering and defleshing method was used, in this method the bodies are skinned, manually defleshed with tools like scalpels and surgical scissors, then the defleshed skeletons are simmered in a pot with dishwashing liquid to soften flesh and pull grease from the bones. The huntsman and scorpion were preserved by pinning and drying, the huntsman was too large for this so was dissected and stuffed with cotton wool. Gravel was glued to the dome base and then lava stones were glued together to create the mounting base.
