A series of mixed media (water color, sumi ink, india ink, ink pen) works on BFK paper, each 30" x 43"", 2021/2022
Littoral Forests - 2021, a series of 15 mixed media works on paper, each 42" x 21"
It began with a branch I found on my walks through Tilden Park behind the Berkeley hills early in the pandemic. Strong winds, unusual for the season, had been buffeting the limbs of laurel and oak that line the path. Branches and twigs, leaves, moss and lichen had fallen to the ground - and there it was: an intriguing dense network of coppery lichen still hanging onto a twig. When I picked it up the structural pattern of growth reminded me immediately of filigree geometrical crocheting.
In the studio I photographed and drew the lichen from various angles. I read up on lichen and its symbiotic life form; a composite organism of the filaments of multiple fungi species, hosting green algae or cyanobacteria in a mutalistic relationship. Lichen come in many colors, sizes and forms. They may look plant-like, but they are not plants. And they are ubiquitous: some 6-8% of Earth's land surface may be covered by lichens.
Once I realized the marvel of lichen, it was a short mental step to exploring the interconnections of forms and their function and how they appear in nature, art and culture: interwoven rhizomes and root systems, entangled networks and road maps, invisible pulses of energy - and the unseen undercurrents that influence a humanity swirling in a pressure cooker of a self- made climate crisis.
I translated my notions into a series of water color and ink drawings on paper called Entanglements. The calligraphic mark-making and inky whirls depict a multiverse of superimposed concatenations. They are part of my ongoing visual research that explores methods of translating the concepts of interlacing, networks and interconnectedness into visuals.
Christel Dillbohner, Berkeley, Ca, 2022
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