Meet Mildred, the Trompe L’oeil Sea Monster

Brooklyn, N.Y.-based artist Shana Siegel has been creating murals and scenic paintings for theater, television, and exhibitions since 2005. Her latest piece, named Mildred, is a departure (literally), as it’s composed of four standalone plywood pieces that together create a fantastic optical illusion. Constructed and painted in the style of traditional theatrical scenery using plywood, acrylic, polyurethane, screws, and sandbags, Mildred is an experiment in seeing what would happen if Shana took the pieces “out of the theater and into the real world.” Through Mildred, Shana “demonstrates how two dimensional painting can appear three dimensional, and be created by human hands. No computer graphics necessary.”

Mildred was installed at Maxon Mills, a seven-story grain elevator serving as the exhibition space for the Wassaic Project (as seen in the images here), and Shana will be installing Mildred at World Maker Faire New York, taking place September 21 and 22, at the New York Hall of Science in Queens. Mildred will be visible from a unique special location within Zone A, inside the museum.

As part of the installation at Maxon Mills, Shana made an observation station for peeping Mildred:

This is what Mildred looks like from the binoculars:

You can see Mildred in the distance here:

Here’s Shana transporting Mildred’s head:

Mildred looks like a true sea monster in the rain:

All photographs by Josh Kesner.