Mushroom Man & Garden Girl
130 x 220 cm, each 130 x 110 cm, oil and spore print on canvas, 2019.
Exhibition view: Cantonale Berne Jura 2019, Kunsthaus Langenthal. Photo: n/a.
Those were their whispered names of affection Mushroom Man & Garden Girl.
Martin Möll (1972–2019) and Renée Magaña were an artist pair bound for twenty-five years — their lives intertwined with light, spores, quiet, and a shared creative rhythm.
Now the Mushroom Man has set out on another journey and the Garden Girl remains — rooted, solitary, yet stirring into new growth.
In the diptych Mushroom Man & Garden Girl (2019), Renée Magaña traces her dialogue with death and the lingering presence of the departed, nourished by the Mexican roots that run through her life like an underground mycelium.
Each canvas is painted in oil and dusted with true spore prints — fragile, organic imprints from the kingdom of fungi. It is a homage to Martin Möll: partner, fellow traveler, whisperer of mushrooms.
The paintings hold the breath of soil, the faint perfume of decay, and the quiet promise of return —
an invitation and a remembrance, a final dance with what endures when all else falls away.
