TREE OF LIFE — SUSANNE SLAVICK

TREE OF LIFE SERIES, 2020

‘Tree of Life’ carpet designs from diverse cultural and environmental locales are painted over images of environmental devastation, from forest fires in Yellowstone National Park and New South Wales to logging in Nepal and Canada. These trees do not lie down; instead, they stand up in persistence. Whether inflicted by industry or global warming, deforestation knows no borders.

With thanks to authors Richard Powers for his novel The Overstory and to Annie Proulx for her novel Barkskins.

TREE OF LIFE: NEPAL 2020

Gouache on archival inkjet print on Hahnemühle paper

Image size: 56 x 28 inches/ 142.24 x 71.12 cm; paper size: 66 x 36 inches

Photo source: Simon de Trey White, World Wildlife Fund UK, Nepal firewood. Tree of Life design from English embroidered canvas, first half 17th century, Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY.

TREE OF LIFE: CHILE 2020

Gouache on archival inkjet print on Hahnemühle paper.

Image size: 56 x 28 inches/ 142.24 x 71.12 cm; paper size: 66 x 36 inches

Photo source: Martin Bernetti AFP, “Chile's Forest Fires Will Cost Government $333M,” Voice of America. Tree of Life carpet design, Tehran, 2nd Quarter of 19th century.

TREE OF LIFE: TEMAGAMI FOREST 2020

Gouache on archival inkjet print on Hahnemühle paper.

Image size: 56 x 28 inches/ 142.24 x 71.12 cm; paper size: 66 x 36 inches

Photo source: Earthroots, Logged forest in the Temagami Forest Management Unit, Canada. Kurdish Bijar Tree of Life carpet design, 3rd Quarter, 19th century.

TREE OF LIFE: MINNESOTA 2020

Gouache on archival inkjet print on Hahnemühle paper.

Image size: 56 x 28 inches/ 142.24 x 71.12 cm; paper size: 66 x 36 inches

Photo source: Dan Kraker | MPR News; Tree of Life Persian Silk Kashan Tree of Life carpet design, c.1910

TREE OF LIFE: YELLOWSTONE 2020

Gouache on archival inkjet print on Hahnemühle paper.

Image size: 60 x 30 inches; paper size: 66 x 36 inches

Sources: Raymond Gehman, National Geographic, Yellowstone National Park, USA. Kurdish Tree of Life carpet design.

TREE OF LIFE: New South Wales, 2020

Gouache on archival inkjet print on Hahnemühle paper, 55.75 x 28 inches

TREE OF LIFE: CAUCASUS 2020

Gouache on archival inkjet print on Hahnemühle paper.

Image size: 60 x 30 inches; 152.4 x 81.28 cm; paper size: 66 x 36 inches

Sources: Photo by Ayser Ghazaryan, former deputy minister of environmental protection, a scene from Ijevan, Armenia. Kazak carpet design Caucasus, ca. 1880

TREE OF LIFE: RED GYMNOSPERM 2020

Archival inkjet print on Hahnemühle

Source: Kirman Persian Tree of Life carpet design, 1880

Paper size: 10.75 x 8.25 inches/27 x 21 cm. Framed: 40.6 x 28.4 cm

TREE OF LIFE: MICROCYCAS CALOCOMA 2020

Archival inkjet print on Hahnemühle paper,

Paper size: 15.943 x 11.22 inches/ 40.5 x 28.5 cm.

Framed: 40.6 x 28.4 cm

Cycads are seeds plants that typically have stout and woody trunks with crowns of large, hard, stiff evergreen leaves, usually pinnated. Microcycas calocoma is one of the most ancient cycad species. Endemic to a small area in western Cuba, it is critically endangered in the wild because of habitat destruction, loss of insect pollinators and over collection of plants for human use. Here it is pinned as a dried specimen approaching extinction, but it is also arranged to appear as if spliced to and growing out of a 19th century Persian ‘tree of life’ carpet design.