Half a Century, Cut and Dried

2025
Relief Print 
Print area 44x57cm on paper size approx 53x68cm
Printed on Somerset Satin 300gsm
Limited edition of 10 prints 
 
This is a print taken from a slice of timber found in the Swinley Forest fater felling in the winter of 2023/2024.  The grain was raised using a blow torch and brush and the wood was left to dry out for a year.  Some of the bark detatched on the opposite side to the split that happened in the drying process.  There are approximatey 52 rings meaning that this tree was planted in about 1970, around a decade before I was born.  
 
The majority of this tree would have been sold for timber, but this small slice remains to bear witness to it's life and record it's decades of growth.  I have purposely left the marks made when the tree was felled so that it is an accurate record of it's life and felling.  Humans planetd this tree and felled it.
 
By leaving it to dry for a year I also want to consider how we use materials after their life, how they still change and how beautiful those changes can be.
 
I have purposely left the marks made when the tree was felled