Pinewood

The pine forest is the most Russian of forests, and Shishkin painted it once and for all: trunks as verticals, light between them, mast pines running off the top of the canvas into the sky. It is a forest you walk up to and away from: bark and needles up close, a colonnade from afar.

The series passes that forest through a grid. Every cell has its own green, its own gold, its own ochre, and only at a distance do they add up to trunks and gaps of light. Up close it is a mosaic, from afar it is Shishkin; the work changes with where the viewer stands. Large dark canvases in bright rooms are the most frequent way to hang it.

The cells are built in relief on artboard and painted by hand; the gold is leaf, laid in points like sun through needles. Over it, epoxy resin, which gathers the grid into one plane and gives the green its depth. The edition is numbered.

A series for a living room, a study, a lobby — for walls people walk past. Pinewood works on movement: it is different with every step.