Re-evolution

‘One enters a vaulted central lobby which, though spacious, has a generally low level of illumination, and progresses through the space as though being led forwards to a staircase a veritable forest in the centre of the building. The central staircase leads up from the entrance hall into the Museum, with a pitched glazed roof flooding light into the interior. ….the subtle detailing implies that the staircase is a living forest of vertical shoots culminating in four stylised “trees” that grow upwards to appear to support the canopy of the roof.’
Anthony Jones, “Charles Rennie Mackintosh”

This work attempts to explore the tensions between and within spaces, evoking the sense of mystery and complexity of what lies beneath and how it manifests itself above ground. As the viewer is led into the darkness of the basement area, streams of branches spread within the space, which is heavy with moisture, cool and scented – the experience is deceptive and changing, an awareness of the fragility of nature, a desire to move from the dark into a deeper darkness and an anxiety about your procession through and out of the space.

There is an almost subliminal sense of one’s management, control and structuring of the natural world. The stillness, intensified by the energy of the roots of the tree and the freely moving root-forms that flow over and under, upwards and downwards are opening and permeating into the space.

The viewer encounters several emotions as they enter the three levels; the darkness of the basement accentuated by the overflowing system and structure of the roots; at ground level, the experience of moving upwards through the architecture towards the light and at the top, on reaching the light flooded space you are confronted with the reality and autonomous nature of the work, the ‘Living Tree’.

‘In the nature there are a thousand tree all their shapes are similar yet none is the same as the next. Together their presence suggests a secret law that governs the growth of the tree through the different stages of life. Within the root there is the sleeping force, which provides the prototype for the tree that rises from the surrounding darkness of the earth. The gentle moisture unlocks the unstaring life, which sprouts forth into the light. The young rooting grows with the guiding hand of nature into a full and lofty tree’.
Guiseppe Penone