Mother Tree

This work is partly inspired by Susan Simard's Finding the Mother Tree, and the idea that a mother tree, at the end of her life, gifts her remaining energy to the surrounding forest. A lasting inheritance, passed through roots and fungi rather than words.

The Sentience series grew out of ten days of silent Vipassana meditation in a forest. Sitting with giant blue gums day after day, I became increasingly aware of their communication, slow and chemical and immense, and of the research that has begun to describe it: Monica Gagliano on plant learning, Merlin Sheldrake on fungal networks, Peter Wohlleben on the inner life of trees.

What I wanted to paint was not the tree itself but the conversation. The constant, silent exchange happening through scent in the air and mycelium underground. The deep interconnectedness that was always there, whether we were paying attention or not.