homenaje a los árboles frutales

44 weeks, more than 3 seasons, after a most devastating wildfire I visited the Vall d’Ebo area in Spain. This area is known as a highly fertile area; cherries, almonds, oranges, citrus, apples, pears. Orchards were mostly saved but not the fruit trees that lots of villagers had on there lands. During my visit I heard about the fear, ruin and evacuation, but also heard the stories of the lost fruit trees. ‘How wonderful, big and juicy the fruit was … of that one tree’. 

Visible to me was the discoloured earth and the blackened trees as well as the new growing vegetation. A zone, 11.800 hectares of destruction, but also of new growth, prospects and continuity. 

I worked in the area; photographing the landscape, casting elements of the trees with silicone to reproduce them in my studio, collecting burned wood and images. I approached it from all sides to get a nuanced and varied body of work. Back in my studio I made the black still-lifes as well as the marblegypsum castings of the molds. The ashes fade slowly with every new casting, just as the memories do in time.

The traces, the ashes, the wounded landscape and the testimonies from Vall d’Ebo are the basis for these new works, souvenirs; an homage.