DEAD DWARFED CHERRY TREE, sculpture, UPSTATE NEW YORK, USA, 2013
The Dwarfed Dead Cherry Tree explores scale and perception. A dead cherry tree stands transformed – halved in size and proportion through careful deconstruction and reassembly. Digital manipulation is easy; transforming the physical world demands a different kind of labor, problem-solving, and design. This sculptural reimagining reveals the unexpected forms latent within nature itself.
Using the 40+ year-old dead cherry tree in my family’s backyard in Upstate New York, I essentially deconstructed the tree in alternating segments. Ithen reassembled the tree using only half of the segments. The result ended up being a sort of Frankenstein-Bonsai re-creation.
Fabrication: Justin Allen and Tom Allen