The Tree Portraits I consists of 15 Monoprints from an ongoing Series of nearly 200 made in 2020.

The Tree Portraits was exhibited at the Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair (Online Edition) 2020 & ‘New Era’ Virtual Exhibition from Art Number 23 Athens/London 2020-21

‘The Tree Portraits I’, alongside ‘Stump #117’ & ‘Taupe Lofty II’ at the ‘New Era’ Virtual Exhibition by Art Number 23 Gallery

London’s Pollarded Street Trees (predominantly Lime & Plane, chosen for their resilience to pollution) have recently become something of a multi-valent representation of so many things we do/don’t know about Ecology to me; & Nature’s Real place in our world.​
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Their appearance defines an ongoing relationship with Man; indeed, many of them have a cartoon human appearance, with distinct heads, arms & bodies; and because of this back & forth, dynamic process of growth & removal over time the Trees seem to dance in a particular direction, as they struggle (vainly) to grow bigger, both outwards & upwards. They seem to me like huge Bonsai.​
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There are wonderful areas where growth & weight make the Trees bulge & the bark appears more like a liquid, flowing down around the younger pollarded areas with gravity. This can only really be appreciated from the base, looking straight up.​
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“The Tree Portraits I”, 15 Framed Monoprints Series, 118cm x 168 cm, £2,000 – in situ in the Artist’s Studio

This has become more interesting to me regarding the process of printing them, & the subject, the longer I do them.​
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There’s a certain rhythm to doing these in such volume – I’ve tried to represent every tree in my surrounding Streets – the repetition of shapes, forms, movement & texture reminds me of a cruder form of Chinese Sung painting, where Artists would spend years representing birds, flowers & landscapes thousands of times, until the process takes over & that Subject metamorphoses, & almost becomes something else.​