In 2011, I made these paintings referencing the forests of Europe that bore witness to WWll battles and atrocities. Towards the end of 2011, I made an additional five paintings, intending to memorialize the fallen - both the soldiers and the civilians. For these I imagined grand parks, wide esplanades and classic placements of tree-lined paths – places for contemplation, reflection and homage. On one level, they can be read simply as groves of trees, sheared of their foliage. But as W.G. Sebald writes, "Places seem to me to have some kind of memory, in that they activate memory in those who look at them . . . if people were more preoccupied with the past, maybe the events that overwhelm us would be fewer." (On the Natural History of Destruction).
2010-2011