Have you ever noticed just how figurative trees can be? Have you ever seen the faces, torsos in your photographs, limbs that you didn’t discover until you looked at them back home? Some are astonishingly realistic so no wonder (see Forest) that many myths, legends and fairy tales take you to the deepest, darkest forest. Whether Daphne escaping Apollo’s desire tainted by cupid, or Grimm’s tales of tragic firs, Junipers and more. With these studies I’ve painted the model in different poses on the same canvas. The colours of the first two were earthy , (french ultramarine and burnt sienna), the figures just coming, in part, into view. The brighter colours relate more to the beech, bay, laurel or holly. The shiny fleshy trunks and branches. It’s as if when I walk in the woods that they are enchanted, each branch, root, grasp (branches lean over and grasp and grow together) evidence of ‘enchantment’. And is a painting an ‘enchantment’, a piece of magic conjured from observation and imagination.
