Artist Zoetica Ebb in the middle of London's Brick Lane market, painting red tentacles of the body of musician Takatsuna Mukai.

Performance

November 11, 2022 in Alien Botany, Exhibit, Performance

This performance lasted around two hours and coincided with my exhibition, Chimeric Herbarium. It started on a Sunday afternoon inside the gallery, where I covered the floor in clear plastic and painted the skin of Takatsuna Mukai white with red tendrils alluding to my Mimus candentis specimen.

We periodically walked out into the busy Brick Lane market, where stalls lined the street and hundreds of people swarmed. I continued to paint with the crowd flowing around us, and spectators occasionally stopping to watch.

Taka’s body gradually became wrapped in red, starting with methodical lines and escalating into dripping and spray, referencing the violent interaction of a parasitic Alien Botany plant specimen with a host organism.

Video-glimpse of the performance, scored by Taka:

Photos by John S. Martinez, video by Peachthief and John S. Martinez.

𝘼𝙙 𝘼𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙖 𝙋𝙚𝙧 𝘼𝙨𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙖

September 29, 2021 in Alien Botany, Prints

I finished this memento mori of an astronaut's skeletal hand entwined with alien-botanical specimens on the eve of the autumnal equinox, borrowing the Latin expression, “Ad Astra Per Aspera” from Earth's air navigators. I see it as a beacon and a warning: Through Hardships, To the Stars!

The print: archival ink on handcrafted, lightly textured, museum-quality paper with a raw edge. 100% cotton, acid-free, natural white. Signed edition of 41.

Podcast appearance || Alien Botany: A Glimpse Beyond

September 07, 2020 in Alien Botany, Appearance, Interview

It was my pleasure to speak with Mythogynist Podcast. Listen here. This is a follow-up to our 2018 interview.

Zoetica Ebb's "Alien Botany" is a multimedia project of epic proportions and immaculate detail. It features “specimens of otherworldly plant-animal hybrids and their potential interactions with human hosts,” which “examine various mediums, from traditional illustration to sculpture and design.” What Zoetica has done is imagine not just a fantasy world, but the entire ecosystem that comprises it. Her drawings’ detail mimic the precision of biology textbooks. This conversation explores the mind and life behind the project. Zoetica is an accomplished artist, an inquisitive mind and a pleasure to speak with. We span her upbringing in communist Moscow to her life now in London is this lovely exchange.

Alien Botany at Still Life, London

November 21, 2019 in Exhibit, Alien Botany

Some glimpses of the reception for my two-week residency at Still Life – a small private museum in East London. It was a sparkling, giddy affair amidst all manner of natural (and unnatural) curiosities.

My work was distributed throughout the entire space; in towering antique display cabinets (formerly from the Victoria & Albert museum), hung on walls between stuffed exotic birds, tucked beneath collections of artefacts and strange books, making for a scavenger hunt of discovery. To the casual observer, the Alien Botany diagrams were all part of the naturalist objects on display, and only close scrutiny revealed my specimens’ extraterrestrial origins. On opening night and through the exhibition, visitors left notes in a specially-prepared box with their impressions and sketches of their own mystery creatures - I’ll treasure them all.

Glowing gratitude to Still Life for inviting me, and to everyone who ventured out on a chilly November evening to toast an otherworld less ordinary.

Video and photos: Chkorev Photography, many more in the full album, here.

Music: "Sigil", ropegirl

London Reception This Thursday

November 05, 2019 in Exhibit, Alien Botany

This week in London, specimen charts from my first Alien Botany cycle are presented in the spirit of naturalist discovery – amidst fossils, bugs, skulls, and all manner of oddities. Parts of the ongoing concept series will be showcased at Still Life in Hackney – the neighbourhood I've called home since arriving in the UK three years ago. Decipher the inner workings of illustrated otherworldly plant-animal hybrids, sip organic wine, and explore this tiny wunderkammer at the reception this Thursday.

Reception: November 7th, 7PM to 11PM
Art on view: November 2 – 16th, 10AM to 5PM
263 Well St, London E9 6RG
Closed Mondays and Tuesdays

Alien Botany at Spiders From the Mauve Zone

July 19, 2019 in Exhibit, Appearance, Alien Botany

This Saturday, I’m taking part in an event celebrating the life and work of Kenneth Grant (1924-2011), one of the most influential English magicians of the 20th Century. Nine of my Alien Botany pieces will be displayed alongside Sean Woodward, Hagen von Tulien, and Dana Fox, in a special viewing, which will begin at 7:30 PM.

New Alien Botany Fashion Objects

October 28, 2018 in Alien Botany

Introducing Alien Botany bodywraps in in two muted shades of Venusian mists and distant sunsets. These are the largest Alien Botany scarves to date, measuring a generous 72 X 146 centimetres (28 X 57 inches) and lending themselves to a multitude of options.

Featuring a new pattern of our shipwrecked heroine’s illustrated discoveries – alien-botanical specimens and their interactions with host bodies; some parasitic, others symbiotic.

Cowl, shawl, head-wrap, cravat… Wear them however you please, year-round. Woven from effervescent cotton vera and finished with a fine rolled hem. Printed in microscopic detail and hand-finished in Britannia, 100% sweatshop-free. Both scarves are available in the shop, while supplies last.

An Introduction

For those of you who are new to my blog, my name is Zoetica Ebb and I'm a Moscow-born multimedia artist working in London. I revel in cosmic exploration, imaginary futures and their expression in fashion, and dithering the edges between fantasy and reality. Also, I really like dogs.

I've been drawing since I could hold a pencil, and have been exhibiting since 1999. I committed to my practice fully in 2011, when I began work on AlienBotany, my ongoing concept series. For now, I primarily use hyper-detailed ink drawing and limited-edition fashion designs to bring the Alien Botany universe to Earth. This project is a consequence of a lifetime of experiences and passions, conceived at the intersection of Soviet space obsession, love of the compulsive detail and speculation in antique scientific illustration, and fascination with the beauty and horror of the natural world.

I've lived all over, and I travel a lot. I've been an arts and culture curator, a magazine editor, a filmmaker, a journalist, a blogger, and a photographer, the latter of which I still do from time to time. When I'm not working in my East London studio, I can be found wandering in gardens, sequestered in book forts, and adventuring across the universe.

Until The Future,

Zo

Art in the Crypt - Electric Soiree in the Wake of Cosmic Bedlam

July 30, 2018 in Appearance, Exhibit, Alien Botany, Available Works

Saturday marked the eve of my first London exhibition. Just one day after a mind-zapping blood moon eclipse, eight artists gathered in the winding crypt at St Pancras to share their work in a spectrally atmospheric environment.

"Chasm" flanked by two Alien Botany specimen in the St Pancras crypt, London

In addition to this being my first London show, this was the first time in the years I've been developing Alien Botany, that I've exhibited it as one body of work. The setting couldn't have been better, with centuries-old brick and moulting paint subtly complementing the shades of cream and red in my pieces.

Yours truly amidst Interaction Tables 1 and 2

The crypt has a sense of silence, too, that seemed to stick around even when it filled with echoing voices and laughter. Despite the night's electric atmosphere, I felt my work was truly seen.

This was a uniquely gratifying way to present this series visually: within three airy archways in the crypt's central row, which allowed viewers to get close and take time. That feeling of silence let me describe what I've been working on without having to raise my voice too much, or to contend for the listener's focus.

Winding historic rooms and one my Alien Botany specimens

It was a true delight to be able to introduce my work in Europe in this manner, and to be able to have so many stimulating conversations all in one night. My hat's off to The Hellfire Club, who sponsored the event, for bringing everything and everyone together amidst significant cosmic activity - it was an objectively unforgettable evening, as well as a personal milestone for me.

Amorphophallus Venusinus, in multiple dimensions.

With that, I'm packing a suitcase and setting off on a birthday escapade to the British wilderness for a reset and a much-needed digital detox. A massive thanks to everyone who came to the exhibit!

Until The Future,

Mimus Candentis - Specimen Function

May 18, 2018 in Alien Botany, Taxonomy

The Alien Botany universe has been incubating for quite some time. Though two of its specimens took on new forms and joined you as Alien Botany wearable art, I hesitated to share their functions. Until today.

Let us begin with the cryptic Mimus candentis – a small aquatic parasite. Its armoured seedling settles on underwater rocks, where a metamorphosis takes place. Once the water-roots, egg sack and incubation chamber are formed, the armour is shed and the adolescent Mimus sets off in search of a suitable host, luring her into water with a bioluminescent bell and introducing itself through accessible cavities.

During the ripening stage, the host is unaware of the invasion while the Mimus uses her blood and oxygen to mature. Hundreds of eggs fill the sack, and three are pushed through the fully formed stem up to the incubation chamber. There, a soft pseudoarmour is grafted onto the budding seedlings by a specialised organ, manus laminarmis (1a). The pseudoarmour needs UV rays to solidify, so the bell dissolves to allow for what's to come. Next, the adult Mimus extends its tendrils along the optic nerve to infiltrate the amygdala and the hippocampus, assuming a strong, but not debilitating, influence over the internal drives of the host. With the impulse control centres conquered, the Mimus clamps onto the eye, casting the host’s gaze at the sun while the armour cures.

When the Mimus is ready to spawn, it induces acute thirst in the host, routing her to a body of water, where ripe larva seedlings are released through the ocular cavity. During this time, the host may experience dissociation, hallucinations, and euphoria.

This process repeats until the host’s resources are depleted.

Companion prints of the Mimus candentis specimen and its Interaction Table are available in the shop.

Auxiliary Magazine Interview & Editorial

August 05, 2016 in Published, Alien Botany

I just picked up the tearsheets from the spring 2016 issue of Auxiliary Magazine, where I talk about the evolution of my Alien Botany multimedia art series and offer a taste of things to come. This feature includes an editorial I art-directed and styled alongside a bit of micro-fiction I wrote to offer a different glimpse of the Alien Botany universe. Explore below!

And the images on their own, so they can receive the individual attention limited page counts cannot offer.