Bonsai Fungi (Report)




Reported by Lucas Ballard


Let’s talk about mushrooms! No, not those mushrooms. Artistic mushrooms. Abstract mushrooms. 

Social media has made me privy to arts that I couldn’t even think of. Bonsai Fungi (let’s call them BF for short) has created a fun lane of art, growing mushrooms from normal and not so normal household items and making compositions. I did a little bit of research into a hashtag they had on their page #mushroomart and found hundreds of thousands of images. Most of these images were animated and/or drawn but BF has incorporated a more rare form of mushroom art by documenting their fungi with colorful containers. Baby shoes, ceramic frogs, goldfish cracker cartons, baby shoes, glasses, candy containers, legos, and even eggshells are just some of the items he uses to make their compositions. 

Bonsai Fungi serves an audience of about seven thousand users that have a very niche interest in their mushroom art. In the comments you can see BF’s followers interact with them and commend them on their clever and patient work with growing the mushrooms. In their posts BF gives a brief description of the item that the mushroom is growing out of. For example, BF grew a mushroom  out of a pain reliever bottle and they wrote “One very tall mushroom growing from a bottle that once contained extra strength acetaminophen caplets. Additional photos include a close up, a birds-eye-view, and a Rubik’s Cube for scale.” 

This mushroom is one of the taller entries in their catalog, but it is obvious Bonsai Fungi appreciates scale and measurement. Although I am not aware of the specifics of each mushroom I know many of them look different from one another and I think this is the intent because if you are an avid fungi enjoyer, you will recognize the classes of mushroom. 

This is definitely a new arena of art I have not explored but I do find it to be a very particular and well cultivated art form. To see some of Bonsai Fungi’s compositions check out their instagram @bonsaifungi


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