I am grateful for the opportunity to reengage with my drawing practice through the offer of a commission from my friend and studio mate Richard. His fascination with natures patterns, structures and forces lead him to choose four ancient trees as the subject of the commission, the Llangernyw Yew of North Wales, MethuselehCalifornia, Old Tjikk in Sweden, and Pando, Colarado.
Methuselah
Each are quite different in appearance and warrant individual study, but let’s consider one astounding common aspect, their age. It’s hard to comprehend the youngest of these is around 4-5,000 years, and the eldest 80,000, one of the oldest living organisms on the planet. They are themselves living monuments, their very existence testimony to their own endurance, adaptability and survival strategies.
These strategies are embodied in the physicality of the trees themselves. The Yew has its lattice of leaves twigs and branches trapping the sun, the sheer mass and solidity of Methuseleh, the slender line of Old Tjikk and the explosive energy of Pando, all reflect a different dance between tree and environment, one drawing life from the other, balancing the conditions that sustain it.
Old Tjikko
These strategies are embodied in the physicality of the trees themselves. The Yew has its lattice of leaves twigs and branches trapping the sun, the sheer mass and solidity of Methuseleh, the slender line of Old Tjikk and the explosive energy of Pando, all reflect a different dance between tree and environment, one drawing life from the other, balancing the conditions that sustain it.
During Art school I became aware of how the physicality of things can trigger and lead our emotions. The intimacy created through small things, and the awe of the lofty, I found the works of Constantine Brancusi and Anish Kapoor elevating and poignant, not surprising considering the power and elegance of Bird in Space and the infinite interior depth of Void Field
Pando
With this idea of the physical prompting the emotional mediated by Art it is easy to draw parallels between the drips of Pollack and the entwined canopy of the Llangernyw Yew, Methuseleh’s weight and volume and the work of Richard Serra, the delicate line of Old Tjikk as if itself drawn in space, and the many related boughs of Pando springing from the same rootstock, same but different, and Gormleys Field.
As a youth drawing the cliffs of Pembrokeshire, I was struck by the depth of the wet slate and the rare glimmer of fool’s gold held within, a spark of life in the dark. Even more enamored when learning of the conditions of slates formation. Still dark deep waters allow particles to descend and coalesce. Then there are the Welsh waters themselves as they rose and fell in the still grey air.
Llangernyw Yew
These experiences, of landscape, water, and dark stone stayed with me throughout art school where I happened across a lesser known graphite drawing by Andy Goldsworthy. It used the material itself as the subject, a circular graphite form on a rectangle of graphite. It shimmered like wet slate and pointed the way to my current practice.
Consequently, I am bewitched by graphite. Like diamond it’s an extremely pure form of carbon, and, in turn, carbon forms the building block of life itself. Not only is this material as ancient as life, but its superconductivity and atomic structure makes graphene, derived from graphite, technologically cutting edge.
Anchored in the past, essential to the future, as pure as diamond and soft as soap, the base material of life itself. I have used the black silver and grey of this wonder material to embed marks like secrets within its depths, whispered propositions for the observant to find, concealed shimmering and illusive drawings locked in its layers, quietly held for intimate discovery like a fossil or a fleck of fool’s gold.
And now I come to the drawings of these magnificent trees.