As we navigate the world around us with our N-95 masks and tiered city re-opening structures, a dystopia does not seem so far in the distance. In fact, it feels more present than ever. “Earth Death” is a series of fully digital photos that Brooklyn-based artist Lauren Gorsky realized while sequestered away during the height of quarantine. “This is not our world,” she proclaimed when discussing the project, emphasizing the very reason we are all resorted to shelter-in-place. Death and decay ravage a dusky wasteland and from the squander something begins to bloom. Opportunity rises from the most bleak circumstances and fungal growths begin its relentless overtaking of anything left on the planet. Gorsky’s deformed figures have adapted to their dismal surroundings. They are beauty spawned from a petri dish bringing new possibilities teeming with amoebic life. In the end, Mother Nature always finds a way.

You went to school for graphic design?

I was in a program that was a graphic design major but the focus was more on broader art direction. My junior year we had a magazine project where we had to shoot something fashion oriented. That was what started getting me into fashion projects.

Had you been into fashion before that?

I’ve always loved fashion since I was a kid. I would draw dresses all the time and was obsessed with Alexander McQueen. Fashion has always been something that I loved but wasn’t something I took seriously up until that point.

You have quite an evolution throughout your work, it’s getting darker and more visual heavy. Can you tell me about how your process has evolved?

It has been a long process for sure. The real pivot happened after I graduated when I moved to New York. I was working at an agency doing graphic design. For an entire year I was only working on commercial work and I didn’t have any time to focus on my own projects. There is a vulnerability in making art and in that first year I changed so much as a person; my perspective was different. When I did start doing these projects again, I wanted them to be darker and essentially be a complete rejection of that commercial work I did before.

What are you doing now?

I’m freelancing now as an art director. I work at different agencies, which I like because I get to go to a new workplace, meet new people, and experience new challenges. Every job there is a learning curve where there is an exponential amount of information you’re taking in. Then at some point it flatlines a bit so, of course you are learning but you’re not learning at the same rate. Being able to jump around place to place you get a ton of experience out of that.

You make your own clothing for your work as well?

In work I’ve done in the past I constructed the clothes from scratch but I realized that I didn’t care about the clothes as much as I cared about the image of the clothes. For this piece, everything was completed digitally so I am able to really get my point across. When I’m working on the computer I can grab exactly that inspiration and modify it to create that perspective.

Was your idea of fungi and disease as the inspiration for this an idea you had pre-COVID-19 or during quarantine?

I came up with the idea a couple weeks before quarantine happened. The original idea was about fungi but I still wanted it to have a darkness. I was thinking I would do a photoshoot and then Photoshop the outfit on them. There is this idea of digital intervention. When quarantine happened I decided to do the entire concept on Photoshop. The changing world did influence me entirely and penetrated the whole work. It was a total evolution but one of my most fulfilling projects I’ve done.

If you could sum these pieces up in a few words, what would they be?

It turned into an exploration in world building. The title of this project is Earth Death; the idea of human life in a post-human, evolving climate. Mutation, destruction, growth, and decay.