Trees 1975

Hryhorii Havrylenko’s painting ‘Trees’ is, well, exactly that. It’s a painting of trees, probably made with oil on canvas sometime in the mid 20th century. The process seems pretty straightforward – direct observation rendered with simple brushstrokes. It's mostly greens and blues, but somehow it still feels very full. The artist uses short, choppy strokes to build up the forms of the trees, creating a kind of vibrating surface. Look at the way the individual marks accumulate to create a sense of depth and volume. The painting is a record of a specific place and time, but it's also a meditation on the nature of perception itself. These artists like Pierre Bonnard come to mind, who also made paintings that were both intimate and expansive, rooted in the everyday but reaching for something more. With ‘Trees’ Havrylenko embraces ambiguity and invites us to bring our own experiences and interpretations to the work.