Tree Talk: Artists Speak For Trees
Thursday, December 17
10am PT, 11am MT, 12pm CT, 1pm ET
EUROPE: Scotland/Ireland/England: 8:00 GMT, Belgium/Germany/Spain: 19:00 UTC
Shannon Amidon, Pamela Casper, Jeanne Dunn, Greg Rose
The beauty and mystery of trees has long been a subject for artists, and more recently, concern for the survival of forests (the lungs of our planet) has been paramount. Each month, artists working in a diversity of media share their artworks and ideas about these most essential and extraordinary living beings. Additionally, guest speakers including scientists, writers and activists are invited to present their work and contribute to the dialogue.
Tree Talk is moderated by Sant Khalsa, ecofeminist artist and activist, whose work has focused on critical environmental and societal issues including forests and watersheds for four decades.
Co-sponsored by Joshua Tree Center for Photographic Arts
Members and one guest are free. General Public can attend for a $10. Capacity is 100 participants. All participants MUST REGISTER.
Member Presenters:
Shannon Amidon will share her series Dendolatry – The Worship of Trees, about the symbolism and science of trees. Depicted in encaustic paintings, these multi-generational trees hold memory, time and family roots/growth/death, offering a bigger picture of history and environmental impact in contrast to the transitory and fragile nature of the human life cycle. Amidon will also discuss her latest venture The Verdancy Project. A 4.5-acre woodland property she purchased to develop, produce and facilitate public experiences and activities around art, natural sciences and environmental stewardship.
Currently residing in the PNW, Amidon is best known for her encaustic paintings and installations that incorporate organic and ephemeral materials. Her artwork explores a variety of themes including natural history, science, insects and their habitats and drawing attention to our current environmental crises. Amidon has been featured in solo and group exhibitions worldwide, curated group exhibits, been an expedition leader at Ayatana Artists Research Program in Canada, and attended residencies in California, Iceland and Costa Rica. shannonamidon.com
Image: ©Shannon Amidon, In the Distance, encaustic, 12 x 12 inches
Pamela Casper noticed the exposed roots of many trees while on a trip to the Umpqua Valley in Oregon. Pamela was inspired to imagine this world of Roots and organisms underground, engaged in a mysterious communication and coexistence. Pamela’s painting process mimics the opportunistic path roots take by allowing the pigment to follow water trails she places randomly on the paper. The animals, insects, and microscopic life appearing among the Roots are integral to this interactive network.
Casper, a NYC native, attended La Guardia High School for Music and Art and Swarthmore College. She lived in Paris for two years, studying art and culture outside of academia. Pamela's early painting focused on the urban and rural landscape. In 2002 she became a mother to twins, and her artwork shifted to themes in Ecology. She has exhibited in the US and Europe. Pamela lives with her family and works in Brooklyn and Masonville, NY. pamelacasper.com
Image: ©Pamela Casper, Roots Insects, 2013, watercolor on Arches paper, 28 x 36 inches
Jeanne Dunn is keenly interested in how living beings are materially interconnected by the air, water and soils sustaining us. She engages with our current mental and moral climate by creating paintings and photo-collages that are pictorial allegories about Nature. Trees, simultaneously life-giving, life-preserving, and deadly, are seen as metaphors of our collective fate. The compositions, colors, marks, and strokes comprising her visual language start in contemporary realism and then develop into paradoxical scenarios inviting multiple levels of interpretation and message, including the active agency of trees.
Dunn has appeared in publications including The Artist Portrait Project: A Photographic Memoir of Portrait Sessions with San Diego Artists, 2006-2016, by Jennifer G. Spencer (She Writes Press, 2018) and “Feminists Who Changed America,” by Barbara J. Love, ed. (University of Illinois Press, Urbana, and Chicago, 2006). She has a Master of Fine Art and Painting from San Diego State University (SDSU) where she later taught drawing and painting for 15 years, and a Bachelor of Art in Art and Art Education from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. jeannedunn.net
Image: ©Jeanne Dunn, Risk It All, 2020, acrylic on canvas over panel, part of four-panel painting, 72 x 192 inches
Greg Rose will discuss his ongoing project of documenting the various conifers of the Angeles Forest, in the San Gabriel Mountains above Los Angeles. He will focus on his process and how it has been affected by the recent Bobcat Fire, which burned over 100,000 acres in the very area which he has been exploring for the past 12 years.
Rose is a painter/photographer in Southern California who received his MFA from Claremont Graduate University in 1997 and has exhibited in a number of galleries and institutions including the Richard Heller Gallery, the Carl Berg Gallery, Acme, Domestic Setting, Launch LA and PØST in the Los Angeles area, the Hosfelt Gallery in San Francisco and New York, and the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, MO. More recently, Rose exhibited at the Museum of Art and History in Lancaster, CA, with a solo exhibition entitled, “Tree Stories.” gregrosestudio.com
Image: ©Greg Rose, 149 Trees (detail), 2018 - 2021 (work in progress), digital photographic file, size variable
