Two Trees with Orange/Blue Trees with Orange

Two Trees with Orange, approx. 4" x 3" ceramic relief

Blue Trees with Orange, 20" x 16" oil on canvas

Here is another conversation between painting and relief, the relief coming first this time. The color and different textures (matte vs. shiny) in the relief create space when the black lines of the trees want to flatten this rather Gothic arch form. The trees are muscular, sinewy in their black and orange. I saw Body Worlds in Toronto a couple years ago and it completely changed the way I think about the body, not just in terms of anatomy but physicality. I drew the figure as a student and later taught life drawing with a live model as well as a skeleton. Seeing the muscles and nerves is different. There is tension, power in muscles while the nerves are about impulse and communication, speed, feeling. A body that is cared for is physically participating in balance.

Likewise these trees are balanced, active in their symmetry, united in direction, purpose, reach. They stretch and contract, tense muscles about to spring despite being rooted, blue-veined. The fluidity of life, time, and change are shown through the diagonal landscape. A tilt is the opposite of a horizontal, stasis. This isn't a Waiting For Godot set (where nothing ever changes) despite the minimalism and there are two trees, not the one presented by Beckett. The trees in the painting are going to go out fighting while the ceramic ones are nestled within the process. The human condition has a foot in each.