Dialogue of Trees
Project Statement
“A chorus of living wood sings to the woman: If your mind were only a slightly greener thing, we’d drown you in meaning.” The Overstory, by Richard Powers
Trees exist on a time scale very different from our own. The human world moves quickly in relation to trees, they appear immobile and immutable to us. They grow at a slow and steady pace, there is a patient wisdom to their existence. Trees are everywhere around us, yet their role in our histories often goes unnoticed as centuries pass beneath their canopies.
When I’m in the company of a large tree, I can feel it’s presence. It is palpable. In the muffled silence of a redwood grove, I can hear my own pulse. Trees illuminate the interconnectivity and epic complexity of the natural world. We are only beginning to understand the myriad of ways trees communicate with one another. Underground, tiny hairlike roots connect with microscopic fungi strands in a symbiotic exchange of nutrients. Above ground, trees broadcast danger or distress to other trees through electrical impulses and chemical emissions.
By presenting portraits of trees together in mirror image, I invite viewers to consider their silent and unseen communication. Visualized as intricate lace-like traceries, new forms emerge within the kaleidoscopic meeting of the branches. They evoke an elaborate dialogue, the entangled interdependence of all things in the natural world.