Description
Abstract Nature – birch trunks against saturated red
Wall art surrounds a dense row of birch trunks with a deep saturated red, leaving only narrow red gaps between them, and closes the lower third with a stone-grey ground cracked right across: modern painting whose whole force comes from that collision.
Technique and texture
The red was pulled on in vertical strokes and rubbed back here and there to a darker layer beneath, so it is nowhere the same twice. Each trunk was raised out of the paint and then cut lengthwise with a point, which is where the birch bark comes from. The band below was built in a thick layer and allowed to craze until it reads as dry crust.
The motif
The trunks are not matched in thickness and not all of them stand upright — several lean, and the row loses its stiffness because of it. Silver-grey leaves sit on thin stalks along them, placed sparsely and never side by side. Where red meets stone the boundary is straight and sharp, splitting the canvas into a light part and a heavy one.
Setting and placement
Give it decent light, or the red flattens to a single tone and takes the birch bark with it. A long, calm wall is where it belongs, with enough distance in front of it for the red to be taken in whole.
- Technique: hand-painted painting on canvas, vertically pulled and rubbed ground, modelled and cut trunks, crazed stone band
- Palette: saturated red, creamy white, silver grey, stone grey, black
- Ideal for: dining rooms, foyers, living rooms
- Character: dramatic, graphic, warm
Choose the size that suits your wall.
