Melli Ink - »Fungiforestrock«
MELLI INK studied theater design at Central St. Martins College in London. She worked in theater, opera and film, designing both sets and costumes before she began working as a visual artist. Her background as a theater designer continues to shape her work until today; her media includes sculpture, film and performance. In producing her work, the artist collaborates with glassblowers and other artisans from dying professions. She loves incorporating traditional techniques into her process and using them for contemporary art.
Her work is strongly influenced and inspired by the Alpine folk art of her homeland Austria, which is reflected, among other things, in the appreciation of the handicrafts there. Her specialty is the juxtaposition of materials such as glass and rock crystal, metal and ceramics.
Melli Ink has been researching the complexity of fungi and the connections that exist between them and other forest life forms for many years. One aspect that particularly caught the artist's attention is that mushrooms can have both healing and poisonous effects. Melli Ink and Georg Hornemann share their fascination for the world of mushrooms. Fungiforestrock was created, a pendant in the shape of a mushroom, made of rock crystal and gold.