THE CONSOLATION OF TREES
Vincent van Gogh was drawn to painting trees, sometimes the same trees multiple times as in the pair of Mediterranean cypresses seen in some of his most celebrated works. He considered them a muse that afforded him “consolation”, a favorite word of his.
Marissa Roth has been photographing trees for decades, not as a deliberate subject, but rather as unexpected random encounters, like meeting a familiar stranger. She was inspired by van Gogh’s sentiment to consider her own response. In them, she sees singular arboreal portraits, natural geometry, and the evidence of wind. In their presence, she feels a profound sense of permanence held within these natural markers of time.