The Tree Portraits I consists of 15 Monoprints from an ongoing Series of over 200 images made from 2020 through to the present day.

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.​