IN PRAISE OF TREES
Duane Nickerson paints portraits of these ‘beautiful, living things’
A lone tree takes centre stage against a skylike backdrop. It has no ground line, no roots. This is what Duane Nickerson, a Hamilton landscape painter, calls a portrait.
Nickerson, who has been exhibiting for more than 30 years, excels at these stark, yet monumental, paintings of lone trees. The images express his lifelong closeness to trees.
“Trees, for me, are beacons of endurance and patience,” he says. “Trees are also beautiful, living things that have individuality due to the specific circumstances they have faced through decades and, in some instances, centuries inhabiting a specific location.
“Of course, trees, like all living things, are also highly vulnerable to wide fluctuations in environmental conditions.”
Fifteen of his recent paintings, solitary trees for the most part, with a few landscapes that are more descriptive, are on show at Gallery on the Bay.
Nickerson, 53, admits to “reflection and perhaps a touch of melancholy” running through this recent body of work. His style is lifelike, but the lifelikeness is balanced by a reminder that we are looking at a painting.
In “Pine Sky,” for example, a tree takes centre stage, its green foliage creating a top-heavy look. Instead of being rooted to the ground, the tree rises against a brilliant blue sky, as though it has set itself free from its earthly confines.
Instead of roots, Nickerson lets drips of paint solidify at the bottom of the trunk. This tree has grown out of the artist’s brush — a reminder that this is a painting.
In “Tuckamore,” part of a stunted, deformed spruce takes over the composition. The impact of the image is heightened by the size of the painting: it’s more than one metre long.
The tree’s structure is complex, consisting of fresh green leaves and dry, dying branches. The combination of new life and old serves as a reminder of nature’s resilience and fragility.
“This painting, for me, touches upon the issue of mortality,” Nickerson tells me. “The will to life evident in the twisted, disfigured tree that has endured incredibly harsh conditions is contrasted with the dissolution of the illusion at the bottom of the painting.
“As I get older, I have come to appreciate the delicate balance that is life and I try to touch upon this reality in the images I produce.”
A more descriptive landscape appears in “Bog Water,” another biggie at nearly two metres long.
Three trees stand crookedly in a misty Newfoundland landscape. Two are completely bare. The third boasts a bit of green.
“These trees face incredibly harsh conditions of coastal wind, rain, fog and harsh winters,” Nickerson says.
Rocks lie along the shore and contribute to the bleakness of the land. But Nickerson adds a bit of colour to the rocks with dabs of pink, yellow, green and light brown. The bottom of the landscape dissolves into thin streaks of paint.
The painting is based on a memorable incident.
“I was lost in the fog on the Northern Traverse trail in Gros Morne park,” he explains. “This painting brings to my mind the moment when my fear at being lost in the wilderness gave way to a sense of wonder at the beauty and complexity of my surroundings.”