Willoughby in Southold presents works by Randy Polumbo and Agathe Snow in a show titled “Strange Attractors, A Chaotic Bloom.” An opening will take place on Sunday, August 20, from 4 to 7 PM.
Mushrooms are natures cleansing force, making life from death. Spores have fruited from Egyptian Tombs, they are so robust and unstoppable.
Artists Agathe Snow and Randy Polumbo mine the elegant and chaotic fungus-phere from different perspectives. Snow creates dioramas, tableaux, and paintings from found objects and now infused with mushroom DNA from her practice. Polumbo uses mycelium and agricultural waste to fill molds and circumscribe his vision in combination with glass and metal.
Witness the work of these two artists in conversation. Elegant handmade mushroom paper holding images that wander in and out of Snow’s organic surfaces speak top monumental blocks of Polumbo’s mycelium infused straw gurgling with LED light and poured glass.
“Reflective surfaces skew warped visions across precise picture planes. Found objects come to life in symmetry with rendered creations. Turbulence becomes elegance, surprise becomes resolution and unpredictability becomes faith,” said Polumbo.
“Mushrooms can be everything and anything. They are art without trying, friends when you need one, building material still very much unrealized but full of promise, key to world hunger, a medicine for millennia. These spores are ever present – never forget, they lie in wait until they meet the right conditions. We both use mushrooms as building blocks of this show. I draw on paper made solely from a pulp made from wild foraged mushrooms, Randy makes his sculptures from reishi mycelium. I share and shake my spores along the way,” said Snow.
The show runs through October 10.