Mushrooms and Enlightenment are
my passion.

My life as an artist has taken a few twists and turns. Throughout my life I focused primarily on portraits – of people, landscapes, and sacred syllables. I won the National Scholastic Art Award in 1978 (see below portrait of “Girl with a Cat”). In 2008-2019 I was commissioned to do portraits of various international individuals including Jan Soderberg, Pearl Soderberg, Irene Zettergren, Barbara Hines, and others.

In recent years, my attention shifted to the relationship between nature and its allies – primarily mushrooms – through photography, encaustic, mixed media, and oil.

My newest body of work, ‘Forest of Enlightenment,” explores the life force of Gaia through micro and macro images of fungi and the mycelial network found hiding in lush forests.

My fascination with the philosophical and biological interconnectedness of the human world and nature is a driving force behind this work. My lifelong love of wandering through forests – especially off-trail exploration – involves deep looking, meditating, and capturing a special moment of subject and light interaction that calls to be seen.

Recently worldwide attention has been focused on mushrooms for physical healing, psychological benefits, and spiritual growth. The mycelial network that runs below trees in forests gives birth to the world by spawning life in the soil and restoring balance to the planet. It has been said that humans are more closely related to mushrooms than to any other species. I feel that connectedness as I work with mushrooms.

Method

I’m a forest bather! My love is to wander through forests looking for signs of fungal activity. From the very damp forests of Washington state to the dry forests of New Mexico and Palm Springs, to the varied terrain of the Colorado Rockies and Europe, I hunt, photograph, and forage mushrooms. In my studio, I edit thousands of images, research the fungi, identify the species, study the Latin names, and collaborate with mycologists and other mycophiles who love collaborating to build a growing database of remarkable mushrooms.

Then the real art begins  

Rarely interested in pure photography, I push the images by cropping, retouching, filtering, test printing, and outputting on a variety of materials including glass, acrylic, and metal. My most recent work involves large encaustics (wax) on board.

Much of what I process in the editing phase wasn’t visible to my eye when shooting but manifests as a universe of its own when carefully observed on my computer. My heart is truly moved by the altered/filtered/abstracted photos themselves. 

My goal in producing this body of work is to extend my travels to explore the extraordinary species in other parts of the world. My aspiration is to share the magnificent beauty of mushrooms – the ultimate healer of the planet and the people – with others as a gateway to finding their own relationship with nature.

Education

Patricia Bukur attended the MA/PhD program in Depth Psychology with a Jungian Emphasis at Pacifica Graduate School. She is a Jungian-based Psychedelic coach (see forestune.com), microdose consultant, and meditation teacher. Her art can be found in private collections in the US and Europe. She is currently writing a book on the spiritual benefits of psychedelic mushrooms. She is a contributing author and photographer in the 2024 publication of “Foraging Mushrooms in the Rocky Mountains” (Falcon Press), “Between the Space” Poetry and Art (out of publication), and “Evolution of Psyche: Psychedelics and Spiritual Awakening” (publication date 2025).

Patricia is a board member of the Colorado Mycological Society and the Aspen Indigenous Foundation. She can be reached by clicking here.