Madge Evers Interview
Learn more about Madge Evers in an interview for Pearl.
Madge Evers (b. 1961, Norwalk, CT) uses foraged plants and fungi to explore cross-species collaboration. Her work has been exhibited at the Danforth Art Museum, the Brattleboro Museum, and throughout the east coast. Madge was a Critical Mass finalist in 2019, a 2021 Mass Cultural Council photography finalist, and has attended artist residencies in MA, ME, VA, and Ireland. Her work has been published in Antennae: The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture and acquired by private and institutional collectors. Madge teaches cyanotype workshops to people of all ages; she lives and works in western Massachusetts.
Artist Statement
Blue Herbarium images are cyanotypes created with digital negatives of the “The New Herbarium series,” in which I reimagine the centuries-old process of collecting and preserving plants for science and art. In traditional herbaria, botanical specimens are pressed and arranged on paper. My technique departs from tradition when I place a foraged mushroom, gill-side down, on top of pressed plants. After the billions of spores contained within the gills of the mushroom are released, they fall and mark the paper. The plant, acting as stencil, is then removed and its silhouette is rendered in spores. Leaves reference photosynthesis, upon which ecosystems depend; spores reference the ancient and intimate collaboration of mycorrhiza. Each Blue Herbarium cyanotype will be printed as a limited series of 25.
Instagram: @_sporeplay
Personal website
images of work
