Tree VII

A single tree is the subject of this canvas, its dark red trunk climbing from the base into a crown of blossoms and green leaves against a purple evening sky. Fragments from across this collection cling to it along the way, a grey block, teal stripes, a pink tag, a small window frame, a single open eye, caught in the branches like debris a storm blew in and never blew back out. A pale hand hovers just above a stag standing calm at the tree's base, backlit by a hot orange sunset.

Two navy, solar-panel-textured blocks anchor opposite corners of the canvas, upper left and lower right, tilted like they've been dropped in rather than built. At this size and price, it's an entry point rather than a centerpiece, but the questions running through it are the same ones driving the larger "Tree Man" works.

Everywhere else in this collection, nature is losing ground to what's built or thrown away. Here, for once, the tree is still standing, still in bloom, still carrying a full canopy despite everything caught in its branches. The stag at its base isn't fleeing, it's sheltering there. This is the one canvas in the group where survival, not collision, is the subject.