Aspen

One of the largest and longest living organisms in the world, the aspen has started to die on a mass scale.

An organism in constant flux, elder aspen trees often die while young shoots continually spread along the tendrils of the familial roots. Now they are acquiring a disease I have never seen before. The appearance of infected aspen is disconcerting. Because they bleed red sap through their thin skin-like bark, the trees attain a corporeal appearance. Sometimes the infections look like flesh wounds.

Growing up in the Colorado Rocky Mountain region, it has always been my favorite tree. It is with tremendous sadness and concern that I am recording the effects of this infection.

While my work has focused on social concerns on an international level, I’m pressed now to speak of the forests. They are dying at a rate that has reached epidemic proportions, and the infections are growing exponentially. Across the state, 80% of pine forests will die from beetle kill, and it is expected that we will loose 40% of aspen. We have yet to discover the direct cause of the aspens’ infection, but it is strongly assumed that the trees are not adapting to the warmer weather.

I sense that dying forests are among the first signs of major climate changes that will swing around to have equally drastic effect on us. For this reason I aspire to reflect these dramatic changes in a way that will cultivate concern for our natural environment and how we are tied to it.

I propose to create a large series of paintings depicting the aspen groves that are dying in the land of my blood. Traditionally, landscape painting is idyllic and romanticized. Beautiful paintings are engaging, but for me it’s also important to tie in conceptual elements that address our impact on the environment.

Recently I took my shotgun to a set of thick plywood panels, skimming the surface along the grain to create violent reliefs. Like any of my brushes, I use my shotgun as a mark making tool. It is a tool that was designed solely for destruction and will speak to the impact of our lifestyle on natural lands.

Contrasting the violent shotgun process, I will paint lush organic depictions of aspen. Following the vertical energy of the shot, I intend to layer groves atop of one another. Primed with white shellac, thin layers of oil paint will maintain a high transparency and appear ghostly. The groves will melt into each other and become an ephemeral flickering of whites and spring greens that will be contrasted by the blood red sap and black gashes of the infected aspen. The overall quality of the images will echo the quaking light in an aspen grove, while being painted in a fleeting manner to reflect the loss of extended families of aspen.

This past spring I spent 2 weeks sleeping in an aspen grove on the ranch where I grew up. I created an initial series depicting healthy aspen groves as a study of light in various weather conditions, as well as the array of spring greens emerging now. I will use these as a reference while creating the actual works from compiling the hundreds of photos I took of the infected groves further afield.

While landscape painting is a variance in my typical genre of painting, I feel this subject addresses environmental concerns that transcend our social structures since climate change will affect everyone, regardless of class. As with any subject, I am driven to find ways for the work to spur on dialogue and action. Frequently I align myself with organizations who work in the fields that have inspired my work. In this way, I am able to broaden arts audiences while encouraging communities to address issues to which we are all tied. Ultimately I envision installing the finished paintings where in one area the viewer is engulfed by intimate groves of ephemeral aspen. I would leave another part of the gallery empty as an ominous forecast for the future lest we begin to consider the repercussions of how we live.