SILVA CASCADIA: UNDER THE SPELL OF THE FOREST

Maria Cristalli, History of Fire, 2021, forged steel, 78 x 12 x12 inches

Kimberly Trowbridge, Oracle Tree I, Big Leaf Maple, 2020, oil on paper panel, 96 x 48 inches

Laura Hamje, Eden, 2021, oil on canvas, 80 x 40 inches

Juliet Shen, Unearthed, 2022, ink on tan Kitakata paper, 120 x 38 inches

Silva Cascadia: Under the Spell of the Forest features noteworthy Northwest women artists whose works center around the fecund dialogue with trees and forests, rippling out in themes that encompass science and environmentalism, history, art practice, and spiritualism.

The forest provides deep, sustained, and varied inspiration for these artists, who portray trees from perspectives including the aesthetic, forensic, metaphoric, and ecologic. While the assumption of interconnectedness and interdependence of trees in forests may have long been held, it wasn’t until the dedicated research and practice by a female scientist proved that forests are akin to families. “Mother trees” act as social beings that communicate with one another and provide sustenance and protection to surrounding smaller and younger trees.

Since her 1997 doctoral thesis in which forest ecologist Suzanne Simard identified and named the “wood-wide web,” she has expanded her research by conducting far-reaching, long-term fieldwork to empirically prove that trees communicate through subterranean networks of roots, fungi, and bacteria, and that trees are more cooperative than competitive with each other. In 2015, Simard founded The Mother Tree Project, which aims to identify and develop more resilient and diverse practices to ensure healthy future forests.

Is there a female sensibility, an artistic awareness that resonates with the “matriarchal” nature of woodlands? Under the spell of the forest, each artist in Silva Cascadia is attuned in her own unique way to trees, as evidenced by the range of scale, styles, and mediums on exhibit. Yet there is an essential, shared through line of nuance, gravitas, and attention—a quiet devotion to their subject that provides respite, awe, and inspiration to them and offers the same to us.

Silva Cascadia: Under the Spell of the Forest features two- and three-dimensional works by Northwest women artists inspired by forests and trees. From immersive environments to documentary portrayals, from lush expanses of innumerable, layered greens to individual black-and-white winter trees, each expression conveys the subtle, deep presence of these giant entities we often take for granted. With themes ranging from philosophical contemplation and history to the impacts of climate change and deforestation in our region and beyond, Silva Cascadia aims to provide contemplation, promote awareness, and inspire conversations.

Linda Davidson, Thornton Creek, 2022, oil on fabric panel, 12 x 12 inches

Kathleen Faulkner, Tangle, oil on pastel on panel, 20 x 20 inches

Featured artists: Maria Cristalli, Linda Davidson, Kathleen Faulkner, Patty Haller, Laura Hamje, Hart James, Claire Johnson, Donna Leavitt, Karen Lené Rudd, Juliet Shen, Kimberly Trowbridge, and Suze Woolf.

Check out the educational programming related to Silva Cascadia here. View the digital gallery guide in English and Spanish.