OF TREES AND TECHNOLOGIES

TREE DRAWINGS June 2011! Nature, Man & Technology intermingle in these beautifully surreal summertime landscapes. The city is a giant gear, but it is all the people, their interactions and planetary reaction's that power the machine! The Trees grow tall, towering over the monstrous metropolis but with each new ring the silent creatures encounter new catastrophes. Concrete, smog, hunters and commercial transformations threaten the foliage with every breath. As time and evolution passes the ancient beasts adapt in the only feasible manner. The trees grow eyes, human extremities and proceed to adapt mankind's characteristics. The trees assimilate popular technologies for it is their only chance, thrive to survive … Such is progress!

This collection of black and white ink drawings examines an imaginary reconciliation between nature and the metropolis. The imagery revolves around the unification of three traditionally opposing forces; nature, man and mechanics. The trees have human eyes, arms and electronic rooting systems, all of which seems to make sense in this technological day and age. The strange combination presents an optimistic hypothesis suggesting plants and progress are destined to cooperate because there simply isn’t any other option. The series was inspired by the synchronistic blossoming of Toronto’s trees and the discovery of an old short poem entitled “All watched over by Machines of Loving Grace”. The poem, written by Richard Brautigan, is about nature, man, animals and technology all living together in a harmonized ecosystem.

Using a simple meditative process (sitting under a tree and drawing pictures of trees ) I made 13 of these drawings of trees. The works were all made with pen and ink on archival illustration boards and ranged in size from 8.5 x 11 inches to 18 x 24 inches. The collection was shown as part of a store front gallery window display at the Robert Kananaj Gallery in August 2011.

TREE DRAWINGS STOREFRONT EXHIBITION