Description

The Elm Tree (mural) is composed of two-hundred and sixty small sheets of Kozo paper made by the artist. Each sheet is ink-jet printed with a fragment of the image. Together they create a composite black and white image of an elm tree. The photograph of the tree near Lachute, Québec was taken by the artist. Each sheet is pinned to the wall with two straight pins. Like leaves in a tree, the pages are sensitive to any movement of air and flutter perceptibly when viewers pass by or the ventilation system is activated.


Statement

This elm tree was the inspiration for several works on paper and has a special place in my heart. The species is large with a graceful, umbrella-shaped tree form.  Like this tree, one often finds a single elm in the middle of a field – the farmer having chosen to plant around it rather than cut it down. The American Elm has been attacked a lot by disease, so when you find one that has managed to resist it, it’s impressive. I see elms as a symbol of art and the artist in society.

Karen Trask, 2024



Exhibition History

September 9 – October 7, 2000
Galerie B-312, Montréal, Québec, Canada
Description

In the gallery’s small room, Karen Trask offers us a series of artist’s books where a reflection on the materiality of the object and our relationship to it is developed. The language and the image are found there, but the material qualities of the supports draw and hold our attention to what gives substance to these representations. Curiously, words and images acquire an increased virtuality.

Starting from the book, this work, in its astonishing simplicity, takes us back to its vegetal origin and introduces the tree as a motif. But this tree, even if it is materially present in different forms, is also crossed by language. Conversely, language, although strongly inscribed in the material, retains all its evocative power.
Objects come to us in different appearances and imply different relationships. They are sometimes sculptures to look at and involve displacement, sometimes books to leaf through, to manipulate, to read, sometimes virtual books. This means that they summon us differently, that they do not engage our bodies in the same way. At the heart of the experience to which we are invited, there is a diversity in which our senses are engaged in multiple ways, making us experience our presence through an extended range of sensitive qualities. (source: B-312 website, consulted July 12, 2023)

Dans la petite salle de la galerie, Karen Trask nous propose une série de livres d’artiste où se développe une réflexion sur la matérialité de l’objet et sur notre rapport à celui-ci. Le langage et l’image s’y retrouvent, mais les qualités matérielles des supports attirent et retiennent notre attention sur ce qui donne corps à ces représentations. Curieusement, les mots et les images en acquièrent une virtualité accrue.

À partir du livre, ce travail, dans son étonnante simplicité, nous ramène à l’origine végétale de celui-ci et introduit l’arbre comme motif. Mais cet arbre, même s’il est présent matériellement sous différentes formes, est aussi traversé par le langage. Inversement, le langage, bien que fortement inscrit dans le matériau, conserve tout son pouvoir d’évocation.

Les objets se présentent à nous sous différentes apparences et impliquent des rapports divers. Il sont tantôt sculptures à regarder et impliquent un déplacement, tantôt livres à feuilleter, à manipuler, à lire, tantôt livre virtuel. C’est donc dire qu’ils nous convoquent différemment, qu’ils n’engagent pas notre corps de la même manière. Au cœur de l’expérience à laquelle nous sommes conviés prend place cette diversité où sont engagés nos sens de multiples façons, nous faisant ainsi éprouver notre présence par un registre étendu de qualités sensibles. (source: site web du B-312, consulté le 12 juin, 2023)