Treescapes is a series of collages focusing on trees and their surroundings. Trees have been photographed endlessly but at a time where the environment is under increasing threat, I wanted to produce work which shows trees and the environment in a different way.  Over the past year or so I photographed various trees in my community throughout the cycle of seasons. Always in a state of flux; the tree is a rooted witness to the history and life occurring around it.

Each collage is a combination of documentary photographs, brought together to create large-scale collages- compressing time and space into a single artwork. As a photographer - I observe and photograph the tree but as an artist, I have no idea how the collage will develop and the direction it will take. As I bring together the photographs, each collage develops its own feel, which emerges partly from the nature of the tree and its situation but also from the space around and the individuals moving through past the tree. To me, the collages feel like individual poems, which express themes and the feel of the space.

Whilst the project began as a photographic contemplation of trees throughout the year, it has developed into a consideration of time itself—the cyclical nature of a tree and the different stages of life as people pass through the scene.  London landmarks can be seen in some of the collages, such as Alexandra Palace, which has stood for 150 years and played an active role in both World Wars. The building anchors an ever-changing scene—aeroplanes speed across the sky, crows intelligently search for food, while a myriad of people navigate through the landscape at different stages of their lives: a young boy doing a wheelie on his bicycle, young people running past the scene,  or smiling for family photos, children playing in the branches of a tree, an embracing couple, an older man learning to skateboard, volunteers cutting back over-growth and the somber wooden bench, with flowers, under the shade of a tree marking the passing of a young woman. 

All the while the trees reflect the changing environment in a riot of colour: the raging orange of autumn, the debut of luscious green in the spring and brittle dryness of dead saplings, the victims of record-breaking summer heat. The trees revealing to us the state of the world as the violent orange emerging in all the collages reflect a sense of danger – a year of record-breaking heat, lack of snow and climate change alerts  – the very real sense that life as we have known it, is changing.

The collages, ultimately, are a celebration and appreciation of life and nature. Trees have featured in art in many ways throughout history, my hope is to nurture the appreciation of them through my unique photographic collages.