Silva Cascadia: Under the Spell of the Forest
February 3 - May 12, 2024
A Group Show Curated by Kathleen Garrett
Museum of Northwest Art
La Conner, WA
5 PAINTINGS:
3 Oracle Trees/ Big Leaf Maples
Hemlock in the Moss Garden
Western Red Cedar & Salmon Bones
The paintings I created for Silva Cascadia all depict a centralized tree, a body, a significant encounter I’ve experienced in nature. My paintings are odes to these living beings, a way for me to express my astonishment and reverence for them through visual form. Trees epitomize the great lessons of figure-ground: how to embody the self while also dissolving the boundaries between self and environment. In other words: to be wholly integrated, present, and actively a part of the great choreography and rhythm of life.
I go to these trees for council, for comfort. I go to them to witness and to be witnessed. I go to them to feel my own body in the body of the trunk, my pulse in the gesture of limbs, my breathing in the boughs shaping air and light. I go to them to be held in their theater of interactions.