The Presence of Trees / Port Saint John Gallery / May 2 – June 27, 2025
Linda Johns – Artist Statement
Since I learned to walk, I’ve been a Treehugger. Whenever I played truant from school, I spend quality time in a tree – those times I remember well, whereas school remains an unimportant blur.
Throughout my artwork, trees are speaking, though not as we do. Using colour symbolically, I tried to convey their experiences from youngsters with all before them, to trees in their prime being over-harvested, to elders amid waste. Stumps, roots, even driftwood can evoke thought about taking only what is needed for survival, preparing proper living conditions for future generations, living harmoniously with other forms of life. Trees are elemental caregivers for Gaia, our planet – using and returning earth, air, and water for nourishment of all. I wish my species could say the same.
As Gaia’s dilemma worsened, I began to incorporate words and images that completed each other. I called them Poem Paintings and I likened them to driving a team of horses: the poems did not ‘explain’ the paintings, and the paintings did not illustrate the poems. They worked as a team.
Similarly, my concept of the Tree of Life expanded to Gaia in that role. Every ‘branch’ of life has equal value because each is helping to sustain the planet – except for humans. Our activities are crippling our cosmic home, changing it drastically.
No path leads backwards. Id we want survival at some level, we must work with what we’ve done and are doing still. All life forms have been making this clear for some time. We must listen…
Throughout my life, I’ve included these concerns as well as others in a variety of mediums, each so expressive in its particular way: drawing; wood engraving; lino prints; fired clay sculptures; wood, stone and whalebone carvings; acrylic on canvas and paper; creative non-fiction; poetry.
Due to ageing, I’ve reduced the mediums to acrylic on paper (often cut or torn), pencils graphite and black, and writing in prose and poetry. I work daily at these. The book, Strong Roots, Drawings and Thoughts in Praise of Trees has been put together in time for this exhibition, in added tribute.
“Be still, my heart, these great trees are prayers.” – Rabindranath Tagore
Anna Syperek – Artist Statement
I have always loved trees. I loved to swing from them and climb on them, to build forts in their branches, hiding under their canopy, tasting their sap and making cider from their apples. And I have always loved to paint and draw trees. The way they grow – their reaching branches are as interesting and sinuous as the human body. And I love the complexity and yet order in the seeming chaos of the woods.
I am drawn to the relationship between humans and trees, starting with my own – perhaps watching the leaves dance from my pram, outside for my afternoon nap, or climbing them as a child. But growing older, I started to note the way that trees enfold a house, protecting it, sometimes hiding it – the interplay between the organic branches and rigid roof lines. The way new subdivisions destroyed our treed playgrounds, and then sprouted spindly saplings in front of each new bungalow.
Trees are a defining part of the landscape where I live now and are always a presence in my paintings; a row of spruce on a hilltop, bare branches against a wintery sky, bark, lichen and moss creating rich, intricate patterns. Much of what I paint is just around my house, looking out the window at breakfast or something I see on the way into town. Sometimes, I’m hit over the head with an image that I just must paint, and sometimes, I see the same thing over and over until suddenly I’m seeing it in a different way – full of meaning, significance and beauty. I try to recreate that “seeing,” revealing the truth, unity, and coherence of everyday life.
One of my favourite artists, David Milne, once said: “Feeling is the power that drives art. There doesn’t seem to be a more understandable word for it, though there are others that give something of the idea: aesthetic emotion, quickening, bringing to life. Or call it love, not love of man or man or home or country or any material thing, but love without an object – intransitive love.”
And that “love” changes the way we see the world. Perhaps we see the world as it actually is.
I enjoy working in different media. Painting and drawing are much freer than etching which takes forethought and planning, working with and around the technical challenges. But when I’m working on location, a painting almost plans itself. So much happiness as I sit there. There’s weather, bugs, things growing, shadows moving, and I feel that I am working with the subject that I’m painting. Even with canvases too big to paint on location, I draw a detailed sketch that helps capture the feel of what it was like being there.
Canadian artist Jack Chambers (1931-1978) once said, “Realism is not a technique. It is a self-effacing celebration of the universe.” And so is this exhibition. I am responding, in the way that is most natural to me, to the beauty I see all around where I live.