Monday, August 27, 2007

The Departed; The Determinate



The Departed
Marion Mills
Oil
Vanderhoof
2007


I travel 118 km of logging road every time I go to Vanderhoof so I see the actual condition of our forests. This painting was inspired on one of those trips where at 50 km. on the Kluskus FSR, a forest fire literally ravaged the dead beetle wood. Where once there was a thriving green forest, now there are blackened upright spires of the departed.




The Determinate
Marion Mills
Oil
Vanderhoof
2007
In this painting I wanted to portray a sense of loss, along with the sense of unknown. The depth of the forest gives the viewer an awareness of the vastness of the volume of trees hit by this epidemic. The reds, interspersed with greens, communicate a sense of hope that not all trees were hit. The greens interspersed with reds, communicate the threat that this healthy stand might be on its way out. The black trees represent the cold fact that dead forests are potential tinderboxes.

The determinate, whose value is the sum of all the products that can be formed from a certain number of quantities in a block; the beetle infestation has affected the forests not only in volume; but also because bug wood cannot produce the same quality of lumber as healthy green pine, and therefore their product value cannot be determined.

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