NYAB Event - Allison Green "Deeply Rooted"

Allison Green "Deeply Rooted"

Susan Eley Fine Art

This event has ended.

We are pleased to announce the opening of Deeply Rooted: Arboreal Portraits by Allison Green, opening on Wednesday, March 2 with a gallery reception from 6-8 pm. The exhibition—the first solo show of Allison Greenʼs work in New York City—features recent portraits of trees depicted alone or in pairs and groups.
For Green there is no more wondrous muse than the tree. Trees provide shade, beauty, comfort and oxygen. They are everywhere, essential for our survival. They have provided inspiration for myths and fairytales since the beginning of time. The artist has been fascinated with trees since she was a child playing in the woods behind her home in suburban Philadelphia. Trees embody her childhood, innocence lost, beauty and strength, and provide fodder for her storytelling as an adult.

Green’s arboreal portraits depict conifer, birch, palm and other species. They are not attempts to convey the likeness of a tree, as a portraitist would the semblance of a person. The artist seeks, instead, to present the character, the personality of each one.
Each painting is five feet tall—human size—and named after a woman in Green’s tight knit, extended family. The trunk reflects the tree’s uniqueness, with its knobs, marks and rings, and is the focus of the composition. The backgrounds are brightly rendered in surprising gemstone colors of crimson, pink, blue and lavendar, enhancing each subject’s individuality.

The treetop takes on the qualities of the face and head, where the expression can be read. The canopies are adorned with accessories--glass balls on Andrea, teardrop yellow leaves on Gertrude and silvery tinsel, dangling from the entwined canopies of Blue Lovers.

Trees abound in the yard behind Green’s studio in Jersey City. The trees are her constant companions, inspiring her to paint that mythical place on the edge of real and fairytale, the intersection between myth and reality.
An fully-illustrated exhibition catalogue, featuring an essay by noted critic Barbara Pollack, will be available at the gallery.