Why I keep coming back to the tree

On a subject that refuses to be finished, and what changes each time I return to it.

Like many people, I believe that nature is a benign influence on me, however unconscious I may be of it. 

And the need to paint trees comes from living in a primarily urban setting now, surrounded by concrete which closes in on you more and more. In a city where everything is grey and cut into straight lines( however cracked and broken Mumbai might draw them), the lack of order in the ever varied form of the tree is a sort of relief to me. And despite its scrambling enthusiasm for grey, Mumbai is a city where the trees refused to be edged out .

Over time , I have begun to ascribe some more philosophical ideas to them. I was reading a bit about minimalism and keeping one’s brain clutter free and I found myself paring their forms down to their basics, trunk and bark or root. 

Psychologically, I admire the way they can take root and fight it out in the most awful urban settings, and can make a cracked and dirty wall somehow beautiful as they emerge from the gaps. It shows a way of thinking, that nothing needs to stop your growth, and the unpleasant ( at first and maybe even second glance) need not necessarily be that way with the right perspective. 

There’s also the simple textural fun of it. Creating the texture of bark using a painting knife has a kind of meditative rhythm.  Repeated but not identical, every strike yields something new and exciting. And it’s deeply relaxing too. So when I am tired or hit a wall with my work, I can just do this- think of a tree and feel its texture under my fingers. It’s both a deliberate and an automatic exercise for me now. And it does the job every time. 

This  has been a  theme song in the back ground of my life.

The earth of course in its myriad forms but trees in particular. 

I see them less now as something scenic, or part of a landscape, but more something atavistic, and abstract and I hope to push the boundaries of that further in time.

They are energy forms, and more importantly, energy sources to me, maybe kindred spirits. When I was younger, I wondered how some artists could work on one form again and again  and now I do get it. It feeds you when you have a connect to it that’s real.

I have been trying to break them down into simpler forms, I’ve stripped the leaves away because they can be a distraction. I’ve always had an inward approach to art and that’s what’s going on here. It’s an introspection on trees.

If we look at our lives and our relationships, so much of what goes on is a distraction. Keeping up appearances, keeping people happy, feeding egos- these are huge drains on our energy so I find more and more I seek that which is core, and real and then it becomes easier. Those who really are a part of you will always stay, they’re part of the trunk, solid, thickening with time, building on layers of strength. And with those relationships , communication is easy and quiet. They can be still and silent. 

I’d like to see these paintings as manifestations of that silent energy. They become a counterpoint  to the immersive kind of urban ethos of our modern lives.