I was reading about David Wiseman's installation of ghost trees via the Flipboard app on my phone ... and was so intrigued i did a little digging. His work is beautiful and is obviously an artist who is rooted in his love of materials. A real artist and craftsman. The trees (which are made of porcelain) are an art installation in the Los Angeles library and he describes them as “ghosts of the ancient species reclaiming the library as their branches emerge from the walls and reach 60 feet up to the skylight.”
(Photos from NYT blog)
On his website it states :David Wiseman captures and preserves the fleeting beauty of natural forms such as a blossoming tree, a spiderweb, or a glacier in his limited edition objects and unique commissions. He imparts this permanence through his expertise with materials and processes.
Wiseman's work is extraordinarily hands-on and labor intensive and he is constantly experimenting with and exploring new ways of working with materials such as porcelain, bronze, and glass. Wiseman's deep appreciation for the subtle textures and details present in nature make his design projects an intimate opportunity to experience these natural wonders the way he sees them.
I saw Suet Yi's work recently at the Northern Contemporary Craft Fair. She is a recent graduate from the Decorative Arts course at Nottingham Trent University. I thought her work was infused with a sense of silence, delicacy and whimsy. She has spent a lot of time travelling through Japan and this influence is evident in her work. Her little landscapes of birds and trees were delightful.
Terracota Plates with drawings of children
Raindrops
Her latest work is the 'raindrops' series. As mentioned on her website she
'wanted to capture a single moment in time in the rain .... something simple but timeless".
Konstantin Dimopoulos is an artist creating a wonderful landscape of blue painted trees at this year's Vancouver Biennale. Not being able to see the trees in 'the flesh' my impressions are just from the photographs ... but they look stunning and of course the message that he is trying to talk about is very relevant. On his website he talks about the project:
The Blue Trees is a social art action. Through colour I am making a personal statement about the spirituality of trees and their importance to our very survival: trees are the lungs of the planet.
Colour is a powerful stimulant, a means of altering perception and defining space and time. The fact that blue is a colour that is not naturally identified with trees suggests to the viewer that something unusual, something out of the ordinary has happened. It becomes a magical transformation.
In nature colour is used both as a defensive mechanism, a means of protection, and as a mechanism to attract. The Blue Treesattempts to waken a similar response from viewers. It is within this context that the blue denotes sacredness, something reverential.
Trees are largely invisible in our daily lives, and it’s not until it’s too late that we realise how important they are to us both aesthetically and environmentally. Each year an area at least the size of Belgium of native forests is cleared from around the planet.
Yet while we do this we look at whether other planets can be inhabited, so we’ve got somewhere else to go once we’ve destroyed our own.
The colour used on the trees is biologically safe pigmented water. As an ephemeral artwork, the colour will naturally degrade and the trees gradually revert to their natural state.
Konstantin is sculptor and i love some of the other work that he has done ... especially the use of colour against the landscape. In this respect he reminds me somewhat of Anish Kapoor.
