Hi-Fructose co-founder Daniel “Attaboy” Seifert offers a new collection of work in a show at Corey Helford Gallery next month. Seifert says that in creating the pieces for “Grow in the Dark,” he was “building paintings,” layering several pieces of wood into 2.5D reliefs. The show kicks off Dec. 2 and runs through Jan. 6. This collection, with themes of mortality, mutation, and rebirth, is the artist’s first show in several years.
“After the election, I found myself obsessively painting mushrooms, the way my ceramicist grandmother used to when I was a child,” he says. “I painted of 125 of them on cardboard and started planting them in my town. I think it was to spread unexpected glimmers of surprise, to remind people to still pay attention to the little things around them. I then placed them in L.A., sent them to friends in NYC, in Portland, in Ohio, and elsewhere. This evolved into paintings on wood, and pieces for this show, which have become just as much sculptures as paintings.”
Seifert adds that the themes and iconography of the show also touch on a broader mission: “Much like a mushroom, who grows on the decay of dead matter, it’s an artist’s job to deconstruct and build upon old ideas, into new ones,” he says.