“Mushrooms” originated from a situation that seemed minor at first, but stayed with me. At a time when I had just started sharing my work publicly, I repeatedly encountered slightly dismissive, half-ironic reactions to the ambiguity in my images. At some point, someone suggested I might as well draw a “penis palm.”
I chose not to ignore it—not because I wanted to respond directly, but because I became interested in how this idea could be translated into a form that aligns with my own aesthetic. Something that wouldn’t feel forced or superficial, but would integrate naturally into my visual language.
That’s how I arrived at mushrooms.
Their forms carry a certain autonomy—they feel familiar and unsettling at the same time. Soft, structured, almost bodily, without being clearly defined. In the image, they don’t simply grow; they intrude, drip, merge with the face. The movement that emerges is difficult to categorize—somewhere between something naturally evolving and something deliberately claiming space.
The piece itself developed throughout the process. The face was initially much calmer, almost complete on its own. The flowing structures that run across the skin and mouth were added later, shifting the entire direction of the image. They disrupt that calm and introduce a new kind of tension.
For me, “Mushrooms” is not a direct response, but rather a shift. A way of dealing with a situation where something was meant to be reduced or ridiculed—and instead transforming it into something independent. Not as a reaction in the conventional sense, but as a continuation.