Exclusive Interview With Mothmeister, 1st Prize Winner of the Photography Award, 2024 Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize
You are cordially invited to visit the eerie, post-mortem fairy tale world of Mothmeister. Think of it like Disney World, but with less capitalism and more corpses! Upon visiting this world you’ll discover the primal urge to crawl out of your normal, boring, human skin and climb into the gangly, decaying corpse of a creature far more suitable for this plane of existence. As you begin to traverse swampy marshes, rotting fields and bone white dunes, you’ll seek companionship with taxidermy animals and commune with the dead through human skulls. Making your way across desolate landscapes, you notice a ginger haired figure with a sinister smirk beckoning you to come closer. How were you to know you’d just come face to face with the Bloody Berlin Butcher…
Photography Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize 2024
Canon EOS R5
Conceived back in 2014, Mothmeister is the creative brain child of a Belgian artist duo who prefer to keep their identities shrouded in mystery. Thanks to a shared passion for post-mortem photography and taxidermy the duo have spent the past decade evolving the Mothmeister universe where nightmares, fairy tales and apocalyptic landscapes bleed together in macabre harmony. Using their joint experience from art school, the two create photographic works styled, modelled and shot by themselves and often collaborate with other creatives including costume designers, taxidermists, mask sculptors and headpiece designers to further enhance their characters and stories.
Mothmeister have released 3 books including their latest release ‘Sinister & Spiritual Post-Mortem Fairy Tales’, a coffee table book sharing much of their work inspired by spirituality, culture and the taboo. Alongside their own projects, Mothmeister is no stranger to Beautiful Bizarre as they have entered numerous times into the Art Prize winning the 3rd Prize in the iCanvas Award with their piece ‘Postmortem Fairy Tale’ back in 2020 and in 2024, won the 1st Prize Photography Award for their piece ‘Payback Time, Bloody Berlin Butcher’.
Trust your gut, no matter what.
Interview with Mothmeister
First of all, I just want to say a huge congratulations to you in your success in winning the 1st Prize Photography Award! I understand that you also submitted in 2020 and won 3rd Prize in the iCanvas Award. How did you find coming back to the art prize this year and what made you want to enter again?
Many thanks. Back in 2020 when we finished third with our submitted work we were over the moon. Being chosen from thousands of entries by the world’s most talented and inspiring artists felt like a great compliment. And a truly insane boost. Needless to say we were gob smacked when we found out we won the 1st Prize Photography Award last year. In all honesty, we didn’t expect this at all but decided to give it another try in 2024. Despite the fact that our latest entry was inspired by a morbid psychopath, it was well received.
It wasn’t just an appreciation for our work but also a helluva opportunity. Our work got noticed by an international large audience. And it was exhibited at The Modern Eden Gallery in San Francisco. The timing was also spot on. We just released our third book ‘Sinister and Spiritual Post-Mortem Fairy Tales’. The puzzle fell into place perfectly. It was best case scenario.
Who/what are some of your biggest influences?
That’s a tough one. There are so many.
Of course there’s Joel-Peter Witkin for obvious reasons. His provocative and controversial photographs emphasising the morbid, the erotic and the religious has been one of our muses from day one. He juggles with fascinating paradoxes making his work undeniably powerful. A mindfuck at its very best. Just can’t stop staring at it.
Then there’s the installation artist and assemblage sculptor Edward Kienholz. We saw a huge exhibition in Berlin many years ago and were both blown away. Like seriously dumbfounded. Whether it’s his installation ‘Sollie 17’, offering a voyeuristic glimpse into a life of solitary despair or his reconstruction of Roxy’s, the Las Vegas World War II whorehouse….complete with period furniture and various characters… every installation felt like coming home. He definitely inspired our eclectic cabinet de curiosité kinda apartment. When it comes to taxidermy, the Victorian amateur taxidermist Walter Potter also tickled our curiosity to put things mildly. His anthropomorphic dioramas featuring a wide variety of stuffed animals mimicking human life…dressing the dead critters up as if it were fairytale characters…that unquestionably affected our work.
In addition to these well-known artists, there are of course many artists from all over the world that we teamed up with and who have certainly helped shape what Mothmeister is today. Needless to say, Christian iconography also plays a key role within our work.
When discussing ‘Payback Time, Bloody Berlin Butcher’, you simply state that ‘art doesn’t need explanation. It just happens. And evokes whatever it evokes.’ What feelings does this piece evoke within yourselves?
Actually we never give titles to our work. But in this case, our work was inspired by the gruesome story of Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Großmann. He was a German serial killer, sexual predator, and alleged cannibal in Postwar Berlin who butchered up dozens of prostitutes. He was known for the brutal dismemberment of the bodies, which had been tossed into the canals and channels of eastern Berlin. Carl sold meat on the black market and at his hot dog stand. Some believed the meat contained the remains of his victims. Hence, his nickname: The Berlin Butcher.
We portray a hooker dressed in the early 20’s style, holding Großmann’s skull. Besides this big nod to Carl’s story, there’s this juxtaposition between the seductive side of the human psycho and the ruthless revenge. It’s hard to decipher the image. And thus the emotion that goes with it. From attraction to disgust. From beauty to decay. And everything in between. A feeling of being ‘intrigued’ is probably the best way to describe what the image evokes which is exactly what we aim for in general.
The name ‘Bloody Berlin Butcher’ feels reminiscent of Jack the Ripper and Sweeney Todd, am I on the right track with these assumptions?
Absolutely. The Berlin Butcher fits right in. Carl and Jack are contemporaries by the way.
What was the process like for creating ‘Payback Time, Bloody Berlin Butcher’ and how long did it take from initial concept to final edits?
We knew that the story of the Berlin Butcher was going to be one of the stories in our book. We had the skull with the initials in our collection for a while. To illustrate the story, we decided to team up with our Belgian friends ‘Criaturas’. They create immersive theatrical event spectacles and have a huge collection of antique costumes. From all periods and styles. We are like two peas in a pod. The puzzle fell into place swiftly.
The mask, created by Pamela Is Dead on Instagram, flirts on one hand with the fragility of decay and on the other hand with the art of seduction which made it fit like a glove for this story.
As always, the shooting itself takes a few hours. For each image you are looking at we shoot like 300 to 400 shots. And than narrow it down to one single image. That’s a time-consuming process but well worth it. There is hardly any photoshopping apart from adjusting brightness, contrast and some colour grading. We don’t fake things. For this shoot in particular we had to hurry cause the wind was picking up right before a storm hit us. The heavy wind gusts actually destroyed the headpiece and ripped the feathers to shreds.
Upon viewing each of your works I find myself meeting a new character within your postmortem fairy tale world, how do you approach creating each character? Do you create unique backstories for each of them?
Sometimes the inspiration seeps in through local legends, old fairy tales or folklore stories.
It’s exceptional that we refer to a story so explicitly. Of course we always have a muse that we fall back on in our creation, but usually that remains an abstract reference. There’s no ratio involved. Our work comes to life in a very intuitive way. From a passion and a collection of costumes, masks, stuffed animals and what not. A cabinet de curiosités that got out of hand. We are creative hoarders. In the early days it felt as if we had been sitting a dormant volcano for years. Sitting on top of a gigantic mountain or collection that suddenly erupted. That eruption was the chaos we needed to create. The spark that ignited our imagination. In other words, Mothmeister just happened.
You utilise taxidermy and often highly realistic mummified/corpse-like masks which I imagine come with its fair share of raised eyebrows from some people. What tends to be the overall reaction to your art from a wider audience?
The lion’s share of our followers obviously do not raise their eyebrows. They share the same love for the macabre and the dark side of the human psyche and this planet. But of course that is not the case for everyone and that’s okay. We don’t just have lovers. But also haters. And everything in between. What is striking is that most people who do not like the dark side do appreciate the passion we put into our work. They do see a certain beauty in it and applaud our eye for detail. Our commitment. Our tribute to dead animals.
For example, we’ve had kids and adults at our shows that suffer from coulrophobia. Despite the fact that they experience extreme, irrational reactions when they see a clownlike character, they still tend to appreciate the work that we’ve put into our art.
What is it about the postmortem world that inspires you the most?
Death is the ultimate metamorphosis into the unknown and reveals a deeply layered or forgotten beauty called decay. It’s a slowly evolving, fascinating and photogenic process. Nature has an incredible power to reclaim stuff. Whether it’s an object, building, a human being or an deceased animal.
Taxidermy to us is a form of art paying tribute to these animals. By dressing them up and portraying them in a relationship with a Mothmeister character, they gain new meaning and play a role in our post-mortem fairy tale universe.
Hence why we are so inspired by memento mori from the Victorian era. Although the post-mortem pictures of families posing with the dead can seem macabre at first sight they are not shocking at all. They honor a life in a beautiful, serene way. It is that same serenity that we also want to convey when we portray our dead animals.
What do you feel you have gained from participating in this year’s Art Prize?
We’ve gained artistic recognition and tons of exposure on social media platforms alongside recognition in the ‘Paracosmic Escape’ exhibition at Modern Eden Gallery. Our Art Prize win seemed to spread like wildfire. It also brought us into contact with other artists who, in turn, have inspired us. So it’s a more than just a double win.
Would you recommend it and encourage others to enter the Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize? If so, why?
As mentioned above, it’s more than just an artistic competition. It’s an opportunity to have your work showcased on an international level. It’s a pivotal moment in terms of exposure and a mental boost as well.
What is one piece of advice that you could impart to other creatives?
Trust your gut, no matter what.
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