2025. Oil on canvas. 60"x72"
 
Unlike most of my other work, this painting uses places from everyday life to contruct an obviously fictional scene. At the time I was feeling really stuck and helpless: no one was seeing my art, I was in a job I didn't like, I had no money, no means, no access to things I wanted in life. Not to mention no means to get out. As I was writing about how I felt I realized I felt "rooted". Not in the sense of grounded, but in the sense of being stuck in place. And I thought of this painting as a result.
 
In this piece the figure is half woman, half tree. It is unclear whether she is slowly turning into a tree, or slowly becoming human. Either way, she has an axe (I know, technically it is a maul). This painting is the moment of calm, of resolve before the ax is swung. And to become free, to become "unrooted", she has to chop herself down. 
 
While painting this piece, I enjoyed the dichotomy between the roughness of the marks used to render the woods, snow, and tree bark with the smooth fleshiness of the skin.