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Lina Hsiao Makes Portraits from Moss, Fungi

Armed with fungi, moss, and other organic materials, New York-based artist Lina Hsiao crafts otherworldly portraits. The artist, a 2013 graduate of Fashion Institute of Technology, creates characters that feel at once familiar and alien, with three-dimensional textures and staging. Contained within various parts of these faces are disparate landscapes and backdrops.


Armed with fungi, moss, and other organic materials, New York-based artist Lina Hsiao crafts otherworldly portraits. The artist, a 2013 graduate of Fashion Institute of Technology, creates characters that feel at once familiar and alien, with three-dimensional textures and staging. Contained within various parts of these faces are disparate landscapes and backdrops.


Or as a past artist statement reads, “Lina’s series of mixed media portraits displaying erratic forms of the human condition with elements that are not to be confined to universals symbols.”

The Fashion Institute of technology is where Hsiao trained as an illustrator. Since, she has garnered a career and focus on her personal art. Today, her work has been shown in galleries across the U.S., in New York City, her home of New Jersey, and Chicago.

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