‘Tree of life’ beguiles at Houston Botanic Garden
In December, Gerardo Rosales found himself surrounded by butterflies as he painted the limbs of his sculpture “Tree of Life.” They were drawn to the nearby milkweed in the Houston Botanic Garden, but the butterflies wouldn’t be out of place fluttering past his tree, a radiant blue piece that waits like a hidden treasure inside the garden’s lush plant life. Though Rosales’ sculpture is metallic rather than organic, it celebrates birds, ants and other critters that join folkloric entities. Together they twist like tree roots into a sculpture that celebrates the interconnectivity of nature.
“I felt that idea, things being connected, even more so during the pandemic,” says Rosales. “I walked so much around the city, and you could see plants taking over some spaces. I think different people will come away from the sculpture with different thoughts, but the hope was to articulate that feeling of being tied to the Earth.”
Rosales’ walks have yielded quite a bit of vibrant art, particularly over the past two years. When Lawndale reopened in early 2021, he was the space’s artist in residence. Some of the works he did at that time featured eyes peeking out from the greenery, inspired by a coyote sighting in Memorial Park.
Much like “¡Displaced Mundo!” — a giant mural he painted at Rice University’s Moody Center in 2021, “Tree of Life” offers some humanoid figures along with its birds and insects. There’s an oso frontino, the Andean spectacled bear that serves both a sentimental purpose and an ecological one, since the creature is not yet endangered but listed as vulnerable. Rosales’ work often incorporates imagery and folklore from his native Venezuela. In his “Tree of Life,” he includes a tribute to María Lionza, a figure consumed by a serpent. A nearby mountain heard her cries and rescued her from the belly of the snake. She became one with the mountain, a goddess of nature.
“There’s a synchronicity in her story between the native community in Venezuela, African communities and Catholicism,” Rosales says. “So I wanted her to be part of this story.”
Rosales’ mother still lives in Venezuela, but he has been in Houston for more than two decades, both teaching and practicing his art. He was living in London in the late 1990s but found the weather disagreeable. With two sisters living in Houston, he decided to sink some roots into the city. He has over those years found an arts community interested in his work, from collaborations with Lawndale and DiverseWorks to having pieces show at various galleries, including several at a Latinx exhibition in 2021 at the Holocaust Museum.
Some of his sculptural work prior to “Tree of Life” was more conceptual and sociopolitical, like a series of rubber work boots painted and inverted on posts. “I feel like I have these connections in cities around the world,” he says. “But Houston is special because you have the world here in one place. It’s such an international city.”
When the Houston Botanic Garden reached out to Rosales, he was excited at the idea of creating a larger-scale sculpture. “It felt like a new chapter for me,” he says.
He also knew he wanted to do something playful.
“I want people to feel like they have an encounter with it,” he says. “So I knew blue would be an important color in it.”
Amid the greens and reds of the lush gardens, “Tree of Life” feels almost like a secret space, though, as he points out, “it’s still in dialogue with the space.”
To that point, “Tree of Life” beguiles with extended time. Little details and colors pop, depending on one’s perspective. Some of the little figures Rosales cast into it are hidden from one angle and revealed from another. He says he approached it “like a 3D painting.”
Rosales is intrigued at how “Tree of Life” will evolve with the space.
“There’s this sense of unknown,” he says. “When the banana leaves there grow taller, I think it will have a different effect on visitors. I think it will become something magical.”