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    In Surreal Ceramics, Megan Bogonovich Imagines a Fantastical Garden

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    “2025-27” (2025), glazed ceramic, 10 x 16 x 7 inches. All images courtesy of the artist and Jane Lombard Gallery, shared with permission

    In Surreal Ceramics, Megan Bogonovich Imagines a Fantastical Garden

    November 6, 2025

    Art

    Kate Mothes

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    Simultaneously recalling elements of fungi, coral, and botanicals, Megan Bogonovich’s vibrant sculptures poke at the boundary between nature and the artificial, the unique and the manufactured. The artist’s uncanny botanical ceramics are created using a series of bespoke plaster molds, embellished with intricate details that resemble blossoms or mushroom caps. Duplicated shapes are disguised with a range of glazes, textures, and embellishments that resist pure repetition yet hint at a sense of the inorganic.

    A collection of new sculptures by Bogonovich go on view this week in the artist’s solo exhibition presented by JLG Projects at Jane Lombard Gallery in New York City. Fertile Ground opens on November 7 and continues through December 13. Explore more on the artist’s website and Instagram.

    “2025-28” (2025), glazed ceramic, 18 x 16 x 12 inches

    “2024-37A-H (Eight interconnected sculptures)” (2024), glazed ceramic, 16 1/2 x 48 x 20 inches

    “2025-20” (2025), glazed ceramic, 12 1/2 x 10 x 8 inches

    “2024-28” (2024), glazed ceramic, 12 x 9 x 7 inches

    “2025-3” (2025), glazed ceramic, 14 1/2 x 7 x 3 inches

    “2025-30” (2025), glazed ceramic, 17 1/2 x 12 x 9 inches

    “2025-41” (2025), glazed ceramic, 9 x 11 x 8 inches

    “2024-16” (2024), glazed ceramic, 15 x 9 x 9 inches

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      Glowing Plastic Spores Spring from Invasive Vines in Mika Rottenberg’s ‘Vibrant Matter’

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      Installation view of ‘Mika Rottenberg: Vibrant Matter’ at Hauser & Wirth Menorca (2025).
      Photo by Damian Griffiths. All images © Mika Rottenberg, courtesy of Hauser & Wirth, shared with permission

      Glowing Plastic Spores Spring from Invasive Vines in Mika Rottenberg’s ‘Vibrant Matter’

      September 2, 2025

      ArtNature

      Grace Ebert

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      When a virulent material enters an ecosystem, it can wreak havoc on existing life. Bittersweet vines in Upstate New York, for example, were brought to the region in the second half of the 19th century to combat erosion and for their sinuous, woody beauty. Native to eastern Asia, these largely poisonous plants quickly became invasive, smothering other specimens and even uprooting trees.

      For Mika Rottenberg, there’s another substance that would fall into this category: plastic. Like the bittersweet vines that have decimated forest populations near her studio, plastics have infiltrated innumerable systems, from the oceans to our homes to deep within our own bodies.

      “Lampshare (bx 1.4)” (2025), milled reclaimed household plastic, plant, resin, and electric hardware, 36 x 33 x 34 inches. Photo by Pete Mauney

      In a video from Hauser & Wirth, Rottenberg discusses how these two materials became the basis for a new body of work. On view at the gallery’s Menorca location, Vibrant Matter is the Argentinian artist’s first solo show in Spain and presents a series of glowing fungi sculptures that meld these two toxins.

      “I’ve always been interested in collaborating with the forces of nature, thinking about an artwork as something you grow and harvest,” Rottenberg says. As she began to think about the “footprint of the studio,” she turned her focus to the invasive vines in the nearby forest and laundry jugs and other disposables sourced from dumpsters and local recycling centers.

      Illuminated spores sprout from pedestals and dangle from the gallery ceiling, their vibrant, plastic tops adding a surreal veil to the largely organic forms. These Lampshares, as the artist calls them, question humanity’s enduring inclination toward toxicity, even when incorporating such pernicious materials into our lives ultimately puts us in danger.

      Rottenberg has long been interested in consumption and the rampant nature of capitalism. Along with several video installations, the sculptural works in Vibrant Matter prompt questions about agency and the necessity of regeneration.

      “I am interested in these human-made systems where the starting point is to have no clue what is really going on and to try to impose a certain logic on things, and the madness of that,” she adds.

      Vibrant Matter is on view through October 26. Find more from Rottenberg on Instagram.

      Installation view of ‘Mika Rottenberg: Vibrant Matter’ at Hauser & Wirth Menorca (2025). Photo by Damian Griffiths

      “Lampshare (with plant 2)” (2025), milled reclaimed household plastic, plant, resin, and electric hardware, 16 x 14 x 12 inches. Photo by Pete Mauney

      Installation view of ‘Mika Rottenberg: Vibrant Matter’ at Hauser & Wirth Menorca (2025). Photo by Damian Griffiths

      “Lampshare (chandelier #5)” (2024), milled reclaimed household plastic and bittersweet vines, resin and electric hardware, 45 x 12 x 12 inches. Photo by Sarah Muehlbauer

      Installation view of ‘Mika Rottenberg: Vibrant Matter’ at Hauser & Wirth Menorca (2025). Photo by Damian Griffiths

      “Lampshare” (2025), milled reclaimed household plastic and plant, batteries, resin, and electric hardware, 18 x 30 x 11 inches. Photo by Pete Mauney

      Installation view of ‘Mika Rottenberg: Vibrant Matter’ at Hauser & Wirth Menorca (2025). Photo by Damian Griffiths

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    • 150 Shares99 Views

      in Art

      ‘Outcasts’ Highlights the Scientific Contributions of Trailblazing Artist and Naturalist Mary Banning

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      Polyporus beattiei, Banning (late 1800s), watercolor on paper. All images courtesy of New York State Museum, Albany, shared with permission

      ‘Outcasts’ Highlights the Scientific Contributions of Trailblazing Artist and Naturalist Mary Banning

      July 28, 2025

      ArtHistoryIllustrationNatureScience

      Kate Mothes

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      In the 1800s, mycology—the study of fungi—was a relatively new field, emerging around the same time as Enlightenment-era studies in botany and herbal medicine. Science and art converged in works like Elizabeth Blackwell’s A Curious Herbal, along with German naturalist Lorenz Oken’s seven-volume Allgemaine Naturgeschichte, consisting of more than 5,000 pages dedicated to classifying everything from beetles and fish to mushrooms and ferns.

      In the late 19th century in Maryland, Mary Elizabeth Banning (1822–1903) emerged as one of America’s first mycologists—and the first woman to describe a new fungus species to science. The self-taught artist and scientist is now the focus of a nature-centered exhibition at New York State Museum, Outcasts: Mary Banning’s World of Mushrooms. The show features 28 original watercolors and detailed records of various mushroom species from the unpublished manuscript of her book, The Fungi of Maryland. In fact, of the 175 species she documented, 23 of them were unknown to science at the time.

      Fistulina hepatica, Fr. (late 1800s), watercolor on paper

      Banning’s manuscript is dedicated to Charles H. Peck, whose role as New York State Botanist—and an enthusiastic mycologist—at the NYSM formed the foundation of a 30-year correspondence with Banning. As a woman in an almost entirely male field, who also lacked formal biology degrees, Banning was largely ostracized from professional proceedings at the time, but her work did not go unrecognized. Peck published some of her findings in the Annual Report in 1871, and he kept her manuscript in a drawer at NYSM, where it remained for more than nine decades.

      A handful of Banning and Peck’s letters are included in Outcasts, along with some of Peck’s lab equipment, mushroom specimens that Banning collected, and a dozen early 20th-century wax models of fungi from the NYSM Natural History Collection.

      Along with Banning’s vibrant illustrations, the exhibition introduces visitors to the mycological universe, including prehistoric specimens like Prototaxites. A fossilized example of the ancient life form was found in Orange County, New York. Around 420 to 370 million years ago, these unique organisms would have towered over the landscape at up to 26 feet high.

      Outcasts: Mary Banning’s World of Mushrooms continues through January 4 in Albany. Learn more and plan your visit on the museum’s website.

      Lactarius indigo, Schw. (1878), watercolor on paper

      Agaricus Americanus, Peck. (1879), watercolor on paper

      “Interpendencies” feature wall of ‘Outcasts: Mary Banning’s World of Mushrooms’

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