Becoming Trees
Curated by Fritz Horstman
THE LEAFLESS TIPS OF BRANCHES in a northeastern winter feather seamlessly into grey clouds. Roots flare out and dive into the soil, stretching deep and wide. Trees are both part of the land and part of the sky. A summer forest’s canopy rustles and sways in the wind, exuding energy, not unlike a dance. Stout and slim trunks cluster, lean, cant, and mingle.
Present in some form in nearly every landscape that supports human life, trees have been intertwined in our stories, metaphors, myths, and religions for as long as such discourse and rituals have existed. When fully grown, they are typically much taller than a human, but with a little imagination, their trunks and branches easily resemble the human body and limbs. In Greek mythology, Daphne turns into a tree during her escape from Apollo, representing a prominent early example of the human body reflecting arboreal form. Trees carry, or perhaps embody, a charisma that invites us to identify with them and ascribe ideas about ourselves onto them.
The exhibition Becoming Trees, mounted at Concord Center for the Visual Arts in Concord, Massachusetts, in the spring of 2022, brings together the work of 15 artists whose depictions of trees explore a wide variety of approaches to the subject. The threshold between what is human and what is nature is critiqued, massaged, and permeated; poked at with fingers and with branches; hugged and held at arm’s length. Each approach evinces a degree of empathy.
Artists include: Alan Sonfist, Katrina Bello, Howard el-Yasin, Claire Sherman, Richard Barlow, Jon Cowan, Kathleen O’Hara, Gina Siepel, Laura McPhee, Joseph Smolinski, Katie DeGroot, Rachael Vaters-Carr, James Prosek, Meg Alexander and Jeff Slomba.
March 31-May 8, 2022
Concord Center for the Visual Arts
37 Lexington Road
Concord, MA 01742
