Rooted Selves: Ink Studies in Human–Arboreal Metamorphosis
1. “Entangled Genesis”
Ink on paper, 8×10”
A gnarled trunk erupts at the center of the page, its twisting roots and branches wrought entirely from overlapping female forms. Every limb reads as both bark and body—bosoms hidden among knobby offshoots, thighs doubling as roots that anchor the composition. The line work alternates between tight cross-hatching (to carve out musculature and grain) and looser scribbles that suggest dripping sap. In “Entangled Genesis,” birth, death, and regeneration collapse into one: the tree is a forest of selves, and the selves are a single, living organism interwoven with wood.
2. “Arbor Emergence”
Pen and ink, 9×12”
Here a lone nude figure climbs free of a split trunk, her torso arching forward as if shedding old bark. The lower body remains fused to wood—twisted rings and knots—while the upper half has peeled away, hair and shoulders fully human once more. The delicate contour line gives her flesh a soft sensuality, in stark relief against the tree’s striated, rigid texture. “Arbor Emergence” evokes the struggle to reclaim identity, to grow out of wounds and break free of the patterns life has carved into us.
3. “The Reason Why (Still Here)”
Ink and pen, 11×14”
This dense, all-over composition marries the previous figure-tree hybrids with pages of handwritten text. Vines of leaves and branches sprout from two overlapping bodies at left—one crouched, one slumped—and spill across the expanse. Around and between them, the artist’s own stream-of-consciousness journal entries fill every spare inch, looping in and out of the foliage and figures. The result is both illustrative and confessional: nature becomes the container for memory, anxiety, and self-questioning. The phrase “the reason why (still) here…” floats near the base, anchoring the entire piece in a meditation on purpose, despair, and the hope that keeps us rooted.
Together, these drawings trace a lyrical arc of becoming: from bodies fully entwined in wood (“Entangled Genesis”), through the struggle to emerge from old patterns (“Arbor Emergence”), to the final alchemy of story and sap (“The Reason Why”). They explore how our identities grow like trees—knotted by experience, shed in renewal, and forever reaching beyond our own bark.