Rachael Hsieh

The artwork depicts vibrant mushrooms and molds growing from a timeworn typewriter, portraying the theme of the interconnectedness of life and death in nature. Fungi have the ability to grow on decaying matter. While the death of an organism signifies the end of its life, for fungi, it is the beginning of growth and flourishment. Through biological processes, fungi break down dead materials into nutrients that support countless other species in the ecosystem, using death as a source of new birth and new hope. The obsolete typewriter, as an object no longer needed by society, is a representation of objects and organisms that have reached the end of their functional life. Through the painting, I wish to convey that like colorful mushrooms growing out of an old typewriter, nature can transform death into something that cultivates new meaning and new hope.

In the painting, the mushrooms grow out of the typewriter and not beside the typewriter, blending the fungi’s colorful appearance with the surface of the typewriter. This, furthermore, represents how life and death intertwine in nature, existing as a single process rather than two separate concepts. The blending of mushrooms with the typewriter’s structure emphasizes their symbiosis, creating a seamless transition between decay and growth. The typewriter is being engulfed by the surrounding mushrooms, and it will eventually become one with nature — not disappearing but transforming to a new form of life. In contrast to the relatively monotone colors on the typewriter, I used bright colors and saturation to paint the mushrooms, representing its liveliness and hopefulness. This brings people’s attention to the lives stemming from the typewriter, focusing on the growth and regeneration of new life and not the actual “death.”

Instead of viewing death as the end to life, fungi teach us that death is nowhere near the end but a beginning to life. Many fungi, as primary decomposers, actually rely on the death of other organisms to survive, and the growth of fungi would then support other living species in the ecosystem — a cycle of life, death, and rebirth. From a scientific point of view, death is an essential part of nature and the Earth’s ecosystem; it brings new beginnings and new lives.