Across all the artistic works of this project spans a fascination with three special living beings: the artichoke, the lichen and the lion's mane mushroom.

Three often underestimated superfoods that flourish here in Austria – and at the same time three aesthetically outstanding representatives of their kind: plant, fungus, lichen.

The opening work is the DISCO LICHEN – oil and acrylic on canvas, presenting itself in saturated form as an intense close-up.
Alongside stands the HEDGEHOG BEARD: a large-format textile picture made from over 750 metres of untreated organic cotton thread and a little organdy.
With the ARTICHOKE CROWN and the ARTICHOKE BRIDE the visual works culminate in a duo of objects that pay homage to the magnificent artichoke in gold and organdy.

The central work of the exhibition: the ARTILICHEN.
A new organic form – a mixture of all three organisms explored in this project. This creation reflects the increasing artificial production of organic materials: whether digitally through AI or analogously through genetic engineering.
Wolfgang Schwarz created the new organism as a 3D object in Cinema 4D. With several renderings he stages the new form in the manner of traditional scientific illustrations – such as those of Ernst Haeckel.

As a transition into the applied sphere, Verena Lassnig created for Atelier LAV. special unique textile pieces from a repeat pattern of the ARTIFLECHT.
The repeat pattern was printed via screen printing onto unbleached and undyed organic cotton fabric – with pure natural colours: turmeric yellow and indigo blue, representative of the natural dyeing process with turmeric and indigo.
The textile pieces were created completely plastic-free from a maximum of three materials: untreated organic cotton, metal, natural dyes.

The finished textile works close the circle: from the original fine art idea grew a new organic form – from which in turn handmade, fairly produced unique pieces came into being.
Textile, wearable works of art.
From purely organic materials.