The landscape of the human mind inextricably shapes how we exist in our bodies and appear. Bags under the eyes can result from lack of sleep, a depleting relationship, genetics, or an anxious disposition. Smile lines are born from a promotion at work, a long life of joy, or choosing to persist in the face of opposition. Our physical state of being responds to the ways we care for our minds, bodies, and hearts. 

In my body of work “Parasitic, Symbiotic, and Mutualist,” I utilize invasive and native, poisonous and docile flora and fungi from the Midwest to accentuate the ways our bodies are physical expressions of the internal landscape. My oil pastel pieces playfully explore the vibrancy and vitality of nature and the emotional and physical expressions of its host. Using nature as the springboard, I explore bodily reactions; the pieces draw attention to a fantastical reality of nature’s ability to distort the body’s state of being. The pieces frame different elements of the body to explore the ways they react to an interaction with an exterior toxic or nurturing element. Illustrated plantlife includes Wisteria Sinensis [Chinese Wisteria], Akebia Quinata [Chocolate Vine], Nerium oleander [Oleander], Conium Maculatum [Hemlock], Lonicera [Honeysuckle], Dicentra [Bleeding Hearts], and Laetiporus [Chicken of the Woods]. Humans inherently interdepend on each other and their environment, growing and eventually inheriting traits of their surroundings. Parasitic, Symbiotic, and Mutualist serves to illustrate how deeply formative our interactions with the external world can be, and the ways they can support or overtake our physical landscape: for better or for worse.