Tyler A Deem, Infinite Tree Manifestation, 2015.
Vandyke Brown and Cyanotype photograph collage.
This collage is a combination of two prints using the same hand-drawn negative. I wanted to show others how I noticed a tree grounded in the earth, and how the shape of the tree trunk and its branches created a silhouette shaped like a droplet. What if I could see the structure of the root system, and see a balance between the roots to the branches. They connect in the center, forming an idealized infinite shape.
Two droplets meeting at the ends create the infinite loops that have represented the cyclical nature of time or eternity. Like the ouroboros who consume their own tail endlessly, the tree seems to hold and hand over its energy from branches to roots and back in the cycle of seasons. The tree holds itself into the earth, and both abysses that the tree reaches into provide nurture.
Patterns organize the chaos in an organic yet geometric way. The droplet shape, both natural and ideal, is revealed in the simple organic structures of a tree on the horizon. More impressionistic and less abstract, the image of a landscape emerges from the waves and streams of droplet patterns. Holons of droplets repeat on different levels through the roots, revealing larger droplets that ripple away.
The two balanced planes, the sky and the earth, intermingle. The blue cyanotype is rich, like a deep clear summer sky, balanced with the cool brown of the soil. The droplet patterns are spittled with tones of clouds and stars in the sky, and the soil shows rings of layers and stones.
The horizon is more detailed, home to a microcosm of grass also presented as droplets. Their own root systems reflect to the underground, blending into the current of patterns that make up your field of view.
The patterns seem to manifest into images, much like the reality of particles that create mass, patterns that follow an organic formula that deviates every bit as much as it continues to infinity.
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The prints are spliced and reflected over the horizon, but integrated so that neither the top nor bottom is dominated by blue or brown. The longitudinal-like lines bend outward in seven bands towards and away from the viewer. The manifested image of a tree seems to be idealized as if being viewed in the mind, and the point of view makes the horizon seem to bend around as if the mind is in its own created space.
The image of the tree represents my understanding of it in a more metaphysical aspect, the idealized tree formed by my experiences framed and interpreted onto paper.
I enjoyed drawing this imagery, but the symbols that it compels often put me on edge when drafting it. I want to be careful when using symbols since they often don't have the same meanings to different people. Hopefully by sharing it with other people I can learn how the images I make can inspire or affect others.
Manifestation Series
This collage is part of a developing series of photographic collages that are inspired by the reasoned world I see and translated into a sharable image that reveals truths or understandings that exist beyond just words or descriptions. They are an exploration and my most recent and intimate work, but I love critique and would love to hear your thoughts on it.
What does the tree speak to you about? Is its environment warm, or cold? Where does the organism (the tree) start or end? What does the tree share with the soil and sky, and is the outline a signifier of a movement of energy?