memory trees

Seeing Rembrandt's copper plate etch prints in real life for the first time, I was entirely captivated by the vivacity of their natural elements. The trees ruffled by the wind and the rolling clouds above them engulf any human subject and wooden shack present in the frame with their magnanimous presence in space and time. The sprawling branches and the congregations of leaves are almost animalistic, hair-like in their growth, deeply rooted in the scalp of the earth.

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I wanted to transfer this feeling of being blanketed under ancient botanical tendrils from a third-person omniscient perspective that these etch prints had, to that of a first-person. In many cultures, hair and hairstyle serve as ritualistic symbol of maturity, sexuality, animality and identity. They embody the history of a person. In this series, I imagined the various somatic ways we often engage with our memory through the metaphoric images of plant growth. 

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