𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐖𝐞 𝐖𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐓𝐨𝐠𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫

Amongst the Trees

Acrylic on Canvas 24x36

This piece is somewhere between abstract expressionism and realism. It started with a photo I took last winter while walking through the Mill Creek Ravine trail system under the bridge near 82nd Avenue by Bonnie Doon. The composition of the trees as I turned a corner was strikingly beautiful and literally made me gasp.. but then in that very spot the ground was icy, the incline was steep, and I was sliding backward trying to move ahead.. using branches for support and moving carefully off the trail and into the snow to get up the hill. It was one of those moments where paradoxes exist at the same time.

I played around with the original photo and then it went into my inspiration pile. After returning from Costa Rica, my creative process has been moving more fluidly again (UNBLOCKED - thx Stan), and this image was next! ready to be worked into a painting.

Visually, the shiny copper-toned ground is intentionally broken up and incoherently unstable. In some areas, the root systems are missing. In others, they seem normal. That sense of partial visibility connects to my own experience as an immigrant and to what it means to be “lost in translation.” From a developmental, linguistic and social psychology perspectives .. language and social connections shape identity, memory, and worldview. When you live between languages and cultures, those systems do not always line up cleanly. There are gaps. There is reinterpretation. There is adaptation.

At a structural level, the piece reflects what we know about forests. Trees do not survive on their own. Root systems are interconnected below the surface, exchanging information and resources in ways we still do not fully see. The metaphor here is direct. Belonging, stability, and resilience are relational, not individual. Btw. I always feel so safe and grounded in nature. Do You?

This painting holds an honest tension. The background is abstract and warm. Dreamy. Pastel colours. Are those the Northern Lights maybe? Maybe some tears of unfulfilled potentiality. Yet, undying optimism despite the harshness of winter.. resilience as strong as the wind.

The ground is uncertain, but the direction of growth is steady-ish.. at least it is upward. For me, it speaks to togetherness, communication, interdependence, and about what becomes possible when we are not trying to survive alone.

That time we were together. Amongst the trees.