The wallpaper sculpture is based on a series of trees that Sean has been documenting over the last ten years.  Trees trimmed, cut and groomed to fit within their urban settings for power lines, for example, have been the focus of this study.  The tree created here is a winter version, lacking leaves.  Seemingly bent and disfigured, this skeletal form is not idealized in any traditionally aesthetic way, in opposition to trees groomed for gardens, for example.

The photographs are from a series of captured old and second growth trees in suburban Southern Ontario and small reserves located near several towns.  The first European settlers to the area were greeted by the then largest broad leaf forest in the world, with trees so large they were unable to fell them.  To plants their crops, farmers would ring or girdle the tree, a process wherein they would cut several inches of bark and cambium thus starving the canopy and killing the tree.  For the first two or three years, the yields were beyond belief, the soil so rich and fertile.  Without the continuous cycles of growth and decay from the tree’s leafy tops, the soil was quickly exhausted and the farmer would move to the next section of forest, slowly clearing the land.  This work is an attempt to reclaim and preserve the history of the old growth forest that still remains.