Madge Evers

Ghost Trees Dusk

Inspired by: Robert Adams, Bulldozed Slash Esther Solondz, Untitled (Rust Portrait)

cyanotype and mushroom spores on paper

16″ x 20″

2021

Like Robert Adams’ Bulldozed Slash, Ghost Tree Dusk originated in the American west where I gathered Meadow Rue/Thalictrum from Rocky Mountain meadows in July of 2021 as a smoky veil from millions of acres of burning trees in the Pacific Northwest shrouded the surrounding peaks. I understand Adams’ desire to find hope within a natural world ravaged by humans; I find hope in the symbiotic relationship between plants and fungi, called mycorrhizae. I use mushroom spores as a medium to make this relationship visible; spores help me depict the plants that I forage. Ghost Tree Dusk began as a cyanotype photogram, over which I made several mushroom spore prints that repeated the botanical form in the cyanotype. Like Esther Solondz’s use of rust in Untitled (Rust Portrait), I work collaboratively with material from nature to convey resilience, adaptation, and connection.

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Madge Evers

Four: Fennel, hops, Rue, Wormwood

cyanotype and acrylic on paper

16″ x 16″

2022

Part of ‘Foraged: A Kitchen Garden Herbaria,’ created during a 2022 artist residency at the Kinney Center for Renaissance Studies in which I investigated multispecies collaborations between humans, animals, plants, and fungi, in the early modern world and our own. All of the work, including Four: Fennel, Hops, Rue, Wormwood, explores our entangled dependence on an ever-changing environment as the desire to shape the natural world yields increasingly chaotic results.

@sporeplay

Madge Evers

Black and White Creeper

cyanotype on altered book page and cold wax on cradled board

8″ x 10″

2022

I am an avid composter (33% of our waste is compostable!); real plants grow from my efforts. Paper is compostable too, so from my shelves I gather images on pages of scarcely opened books that will eventually be discarded. I began with the salvaged work of John Audubon. It felt strange to alter the birds, covering the painter’s carefully rendered habitats in cyanotype chemistry. In this image, I used chervil grown in my garden with compost made from household waste. Once complete, I mounted the image on a cradled board and finished it with cold wax.

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Madge Evers

Finian’s Bay From the Skellig Way

pastel and pumice on paper

11″ x 16″

2023

Depicts a September landscape as seen from the Skellig Way on the west coast of Ireland.

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Madge Evers

Equinox, Oak Spring I

Inspired by: Mixteca-Puebla Artist, Tripod Bowl David Seltzer, Sea Salt/Lemon Sage

cyanotype and acrylic gesso

18.5″ x 21″

2024

All food begins in the soil. A wild and edible plant, onion grass appears in early spring; online advice about how to eradicate Allium vineale from one’s lawn abounds. Like the Mixteca-Puebla artist Tripod bowl, the work contains comforting patterns and forms that could be interpreted as snake-like. Both works suggest the many connections between all beings in the natural world. Like David Seltzer’s Sea Salt/ Lemon Sage archival print, Equinox, Oak Spring I uses a photographic process to present an abstracted version of familiar ingredients.

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