Winter Trees
Artist
Palmer Davis
(b. 1954)
Date2009
MediumColor photograph
Dimensions30 x 40 in.
ClassificationsPhotograph
Credit LineGift of the artist
Terms
Object number2012.10
DescriptionDavis's sense of place and time is always filtered through a prism of "memory, dream, myth, and desire", making his photographs deeply personal interpretations. As a result, his locations can often feel like an intimate space, and in that space he finds the ineluctable conflation of past and present. Winter Trees appears as a timeless vision of nature, without the hint of human presence. Yet the viewer is aware that this image could not come to us without a human presence. Thus the scene is seen from a distinct point of view-since Davis likes to engage narrative devices-as we see not the entirety of the trees but only the segments visible at eye level. Such a realistic rendering of the trees underscores their mystical qualities, evoked by the sheen or glow of the dusting of snow. At first look, the bleached scene is bleak, but with a suggestion of magic, it becomes a tabula rasa for our imaginations.On View
Not on view
