Forest Whispers. Limited edition of 20 screenprints on paper.

2022

In lullabies or fairy tales, forests are often ambivalent. Menacing and enchanting, dangerous and magical, the home of fairies and elves, as much as wolves and monsters.

Heroes and heroines of old stories fear entering them, warned by their parents about the sinister fate that awaits them inside; and yet their pull is hard to resist, the eerie noises and dancing branches promising adventure and awe. Once inside, every cracking twig or rustling leaf becomes a threat, but the silence is even scarier. And the deeper you go, the more lost you get, the scenery repeating itself hopelessly, trunk merging into trunk, the treetops spinning wildly..

With these images I wanted to capture this ambivalence, the disquieting silence and hypnotising colours of the forest, the liminal space between terror and wonder. By overlaying separate photos and printing them in yellow, magenta and cyan- colours that are normally used to give the illusion of unity-, I create an unsettling environment, where the eye can no longer focus on any object, and where the mind can no longer tell the wood for the trees.