Roots of the Mother Tree

This is one of my favorite new paintings: Roots of the Mother Tree. I call it the “mother tree” because it’s the same tree from my painting, “Mother,” whose image I’ve now painted a couple times, but here it is depicted in a very different light.

This color scheme is reminiscent of Jasper Johns because of the red/gold/blue combo.

The gold tree is so completely striking against that saturated deep blue sky and fluffy white clouds.

I’ve been playing with this cool effect–I painted the sky with a thin layer of fluid paint, and the gnarled tree with a slightly thicker texture, so that the tree physically stands out from the canvas in three dimensional detail. It is subtle, but gives the tree more of a feeling of a living presence.

The underground roots are visible in this painting, like a cross-section of the earth–an imaginary envisioning of what a tree is, of which I’ve now painted many different versions. In this one, the earth is scarlet red and deep orange, the roots a gleaming gold shot through with pink and white.

Some of the roots weave behind or in front of others, little hints at the three-dimensional nature of the root system within this otherwise visually flat cross-section.

It is a uniquely energetic painting!