Fade
FADE
30” x 42” (diptych)
Recycled walnut and oak flooring, beetle kill pine, expired land polaroids
“Fading” is the term used by forest scientists to indicate the fading of color from the trees needles due to beetle infestation. Over the course of two years, as the beetles mature from larvae to adult, the tree slowly fades from a dark green to light grey.
About the piece:
Monarch Pass has experienced a 90% mortality rate from spruce beetles. After clearing the dead trees, only 10% of the Englemann spruce remain. For this artwork, expired land polaroids were used (which only have a 10% success rate) to show this stat as well as our ability to only see and understand a small fraction of the larger issue. Out of 22 images, only 2 render a legible image. This also references the latent image of climate change, where change is already baked in, we just don’t see it yet.
The frames are made of multiple tree species (walnut, oak, and beetle kill pine) to point to the multiple insect threats against trees across the world that feed off of the same underlying conditions of climate change and systems of extraction. Spruce beetle, is just one example.
