Sunset Tree (2000) Photography by C Ribet

What is a Mushroom Art Print exactly?

C Ribet:

“If you crack open any decent mushroom field guide, or a mushroom hunter’s guide, you will find many drawings and photographs of mushrooms and their habitat. Many of these are beautiful mushroom portraits, and all of them should at a minimum give you a better understanding of the mushrooms they depict. They fulfill their purpose and often provide more, but do they bring forth an emotional response in you? Do you lose yourself in them emotionally? On occasion yes, but often not. This is through no fault of the photographer or artist involved. It is because the purpose of those images is to show you the anatomical details of the mushrooms to allow you to identify them. You don’t want to decide to eat a mushroom based on an art print!

[In all seriousness, I do not take mushroom photographs to help you decide their edibility, and you should not rely on any of these images to help you in that regard! Similarly, image titles are merely an artistic choice. I choose titles which I find moving and complementary to the each image, and no title should be read to imply anything about toxicity or lack thereof.]

I create these prints because to me mushrooms present an extraordinary natural beauty while simultaneously conjuring a world of fantasy which transcends it. Mushrooms at their first appearance often are the smoothest, the softest, and the most delicate things imaginable. Mushrooms at their passing can be the most withered, the most rotting, and the most black and lifeless things imaginable. In the course of their fleeting lives they exhibit every state in between with equal fervor. In my prints I try to capture what I can of their more tangible raw physical beauty, but I also try to capture their spirit and personality. To me there is a tremendous spirit of humanity within the mushroom, and I hope to expose it and to share it through the artistic interpretations of mushrooms I create.”

What are the images on this web site?
The images you see here are optimized for display on the web via a dial-up modem. Colors approximate the actual prints but do not match them exactly, and the images cannot reproduce the texture or ‘physical presence’ of the prints. However, they should give you a good general feeling about style, mood and composition, for each print. You can also tour the C Ribet Wild Mushroom Art Slide Show to see more images of mushrooms.

What is the origin of a print image?
Each mushroom print starts as a digital photograph. That is why throughout the site the print images may be referred to as 'photographs', 'pictures', or 'photos' etc. The origin of each print lies in a photograph, but the final result is not a photograph in the traditional sense.

What happens next?
Once the original photographs are taken, back in the 'digital darkroom' of the computer they then serve as both inspiration and source for the creation of the digital 'ma...

• Nationality: UNITED STATES
• Date of birth : unknown date
• Artistic domains:
• Groups: Contemporary American Artists