The Black Forest, installed at the Wassaic Project in 2022 for the show ‘A Tournament of Lies.’
The Black Forest
Carbonized Salvaged Pine, polyurethane. 2020-2022.
The work Black Forest is a collection of forms resembling twigs, vines, leaves and seeds carved from a single salvaged pine tree and burnt black. Carving a tree trunk to mimic a leaf is a cannibalistic process, and along with fire, it suggests insatiable consumption. Yet there is beauty and understanding to be gained through attempting to recreate that which is continually disintegrating. Through their enlarged scale, these burnt forms add weight to the individual elements of an ecosystem, as well as the gravity of their loss. These sculptures engage emotional connections to land and other species, and mourn the catastrophe of climate change.