Map for the Eyes / Mapa para los Ojos
When I look at trees I see human figures filled with emotion, twisted and pulled in seemingly impossible directions. Trunks act as spines. Branches extend out in all directions like arms. A protuberance becomes the thrust of a hip. The anthropomorphic qualities of trees are especially apparent in winter, when they reveal their true underlying forms, their skeletons. But as of late I also see my own angst. My sojourn in Buenos Aires has been fraught with the prospect of losing someone very close to me, and as a result the incredible trees of this city have taken on even more dramatic roles in my mind. Sometimes they appear as figures with hands reaching out imploringly or cradling the self in protection, other times they are abstracted elements of human anatomy such as arteries, veins or nerves.
In winter the naked branches become a map for the eye to follow through the emptiness of the sky. As such, in these works I’ve focused on balancing positive and negative space, playing emptiness and fullness against one another, and providing places of great detail and nothingness in contrast. My palette, which ranges from browns to greys and greens with the occasional blue, reflects the colors of Buenos Aires as I see it.
By installing actual branches into the exhibition space I am inviting the viewer to look at their beauty, intricacy, and shadows in a different context. It is the joining of two worlds, the real and that which exists solely in my mind.