Dead Amanita No. 2

Dead Amanita No. 2 is from a series of rotting plants and fungi that suggests the passage of time. Paine carefully studies his subjects at various stages of decay and painstakingly replicates them in their final state from cast polymer treated with oil paint and lacquer. Encased in a glass vitrine, this flaccid mushroom seems as if it more aptly belongs in the botanical section of a natural history museum rather than in a fine art museum. Paine’s presentation addresses the artifice of artmaking, the tradition of trompe-l’oeil (fool-the-eye), and the fine lines between art and artifact, and reality and perception.