I dwell in Possibility -
A fairer House than Prose -
More numerous of Windows -
Superior - for Doors -
Of Chambers as the Cedars -
Impregnable of Eye -
And for an Everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky -
Of Visitors--the fairest -
For Occupation - This -
The spreading wide my narrow Hands
To gather Paradise -
This is Emily Dickinson's poem 'I dwell in possibility' which framed the curatorial rationale for the exhibition dwell in possibility held recently at the Centenary Art Gallery at UOFS. I was less interested in the poem as I was in the three words and what they conjured up for me. Or should I say opened up for me which was an opportunity to create and show a work about the annihilation of multiple trees not far from my home, which had deeply upset me. Like many things I react to - whether political, humanistic or environmental - it is is the seemingly lack (or complete lack) of empathy that compels me to create.
At the time, when I heard about the felled trees I went out to the site one late evening and recorded all the visible tree stumps through frottage. For me, this is gesture in another form as I am using the movements of my body to create lines. Having recorded well over 30 stumps I left for home unsure as how to document the work from there on ... I had promised each and every tree as I marked-made that their lives would not be in vain and that I would see to it that they were honoured for their presence.
When I was invited to participate in this exhibition I immediately thought of creating these 'lost' trees, imagining them as still existing. Giving them a presence of still being alive, still here. I traced the multiple rings onto the canvas in silver which for me always points towards the spiritual. At the bottom of elongated and vertical canvas I created the looming, yet almost undefinable outline of a human head to indicate the source of such savagery.
photo credit: @VanessaPotgieter