We first got to know Sara from ‘Hello the Mushroom’ as a fellow blogging kindred spirit given that she has for sometime written the cool lifestyle blog Hello the Mushroom.
Now the mushroom herself has decided to make a directional shift to become a street artist. Always involved in illustration and graphic design before, the past year has seen her make a real play for the streets and build on her background as an artist.
That evolution started initially through the playing around with paste ups and stickers, to eventually combining these with actual painting on the walls. It’s always interesting to see the journey that a new artist takes when finding their way into the scene and how they then start to play around with the work.
The next stage of the mushrooms development was to be a solo show and this is always a key stage in any artist’s journey. To put your work out there for all the world to see and comment on is a brave thing, fortunately the venue was to be Monty’s Bar the artist friendly hangout at the top end of Brick Lane which often plays host to emerging artists and where more than a few can be spotted on most nights of the year.
We’d caught up with Sarah just a few weeks prior to the show at the Nomadic Gardens just round the corner. There, alongside fellow artist Orbit whose own colourful mushrooms have been appearing around the place, she created a rainbow type piece with one of her new life sized paste ups taking centre stage within it.
Revisiting the spot just after the launch of the show itself the piece had disappeared with other artists coming in and replacing it with their own works. It’s a reality of course that this sort of thing will happen and is, let’s face it, what being an artist on the street is all about.
Talking to us then Sara explained the thinking behind some of the imagery in the show and in particular the propensity of skulls and the use of fashion magazine images as backdrops to much of the work. These magazines represent the cult of youth which, according to Sara, exists because people inherently are scared of death hence the theme and title of the show ‘Vanitas’.
Hello the Mushroom was interviewed on Sunday 18 June 2017 in the Nomadic Community Gardens and you can watch her full interview via the youtube link above.. Her show ‘Vanitas’ is currently exhibiting in Monty’s Bar on Brick Lane
Hello the Mushroom Gallery
Great post Stuart… Really enjoyed seeing her artwork around East London this year. Reading this from Reykjavik in Iceland and will make a visit to see her exhibition when I get back..Loved seeing and snapping her Nomadic Garden collaboration with Obit a week of so ago. didn’t not know Obit was involved in that one. Long time since I have seen new stuff from him.
Thanks Mitch I suspect we’ll be seeing a lot more of her work from now on 🙂 the collaboration was actually with Orbit who paints a lot of the colourful mushrooms that have been popping up. Enjoy Reyjkavik have always wanted to visit there
Love this! I was at the opening and got a fun doll that Sara made. She’s my street art muse.
Those dolls were great I wonder if I might have seen you at the opening, I was there too 🙂
I love her 😀 ❤
Nice works!