2 DECADES +
TREES
On the arid African farm of my childhood a tree was like a magical oasis.
Symbolically trees connect the above and the below.They take nourishment
from both the air and the soil, their roots and their limbs act like mirror images
of what is visible above ground and what lies hidden beneath.The tree became
a vehicle to reconnect to the female figure in an echo of earlier self-mages.
These images were drawn the year I turned fifty and were completed after I
returned to live in South Africa.The issue of being transplanted/translocated
was ever in the forefront of my mind while I lived in the United States. Living
on foreign soil and yet, no longer belonging to the original soil would create a
sense of belonging and dis-belonging simultaneously.Taking root in order to
function was paramount to my ability to make a new life in another country.
The tree became a metaphor for much of the process of being nourished
on another continent while bearing the markings and the cellular memory
of my origin.
'TREEDENTITY'
1995 Series re-worked monoprints with poem on paper, 33cm x50.5cm
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