Tremors and Trees
All images courtesy of the featured artist.
Artist Georgette Unis seems to conjure trees and horizons onto her canvas. Only someone who is in relationship with the natural processes of land can partner with them and assist in their becomings. Nothing is painted in isolation from the world because the artist understands the effects of sky, air and weather and she captures that and brings us into the relationship as well.
Georgette Unis is the author of two books of poetry, Watercolors in the Desk Drawer (2022) and Tremors (2018,) published by Finishing Line Press. Several literary journals also published her poetry such as Naugatuck River Review, San Pedro River Review, Southwestern American Literature and Ginosko Literary Review. She leads the Gold Country Writers poetry workshop and is a member of the Ravens poetry group.
In addition to her work as a poet, she has an MFA in mixed media painting and exhibited her artwork in many solo and group exhibitions, where some galleries have presented broadsides of her poems.
She maintains her home and studio in the Sierra foothills of northern California where she lives with her husband of fifty-two years.
“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.”
–John Muir
Landscape Series #172 Acrylic on Canvas 36x30
Landscape Series #173 Acrylic on Canvas 36x30
Landscape Series #1711 Acrylic on Canvas 12x30
Georgette's method is as organic a process as the trees and landscapes themselves. She sketces the layout in thin washes of paint. Texture paste is mixed with pigment and layered until she reaches a semblance of land, rock and tree bark. The images are built up by a series of sanding and layering of transparent pigments, allowing the play of light over texture to enhance the scene.
Landscape Series #176 Acrylic on Canvas 24x36
Artist Statement
Natural elements of wind, moisture, sun, geologic density, as well as cultivation, have a profound influence on the forms of landscape which, in turn, effect relationships among all living creatures. This series of paintings evolves from images of trees and the accumulated effect of these elements. Formal concerns of color, texture and shape reflect their experiences.
The bark of a tree is one of its means of interfacing with its environment. Seen at eye level, the trunk and branches become a varied set of verticals, twists and curves. On mature trees, these shapes against the sky manifest power, strength, stability and individuality.
They indicate water, deep roots and the promise of future existence as some trees live longer than people, some longer than entire civilizations as the Bristlecone Pines continue to do.
To me, a thousand years old tree, even one two hundred years old, and to walk in a forest older than my great-great grandmother, to stand beside a tree where she stood, and touch its bark, is inspiring. I am connected to her, and to all the other people, who viewed that tree, or any other tree with which I am fortunate enough to share time in its presence.
You can learn more about Georgette Unis here.
Landscape Series #177 Acrylic on Canvas 24x36
“A process that is a tree implicates and reveals the entire cosmos.”
–Philip Shepherd
Trees M #129 Acrylic on Canvas 30x24
Trees S #21 Acrylic on Canvas 12x9
Trees S #125 Acrylic on Canvas 20x20
Trees S #122 Acrylic on Canvas 12x9
“Ancient trees are precious. There is little else on Earth that plays host to such a rich community of life within a single living organism.”
–Sir David Attenborough
Landscape Series #175 Acrylic on Canvas 24x36
Trees S #123 Acrylic on Canvas 20x20
Landscape Series #179 Acrylic on Canvas 24x30
Horizon Lines #614 Acrylic on Canvas 30x36
Horizon Lines #620 Acrylic on Canvas 24x30
Horizon Lines #617 Acrylic on Canvas 36x30
