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Leaf and Bark and Limb and Bough - Landscapes of Jerry Cutler
Gallery: "Stumps and Storms, 2006‑2007"
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Stumps and Storms
After decades of quiet, in 2004 the state of Florida was hammered by a large number of destructive hurricanes. At least 3 of them raced up the peninsular spine of the state unleashing the power of great winds pushing northward. Afterward, as I sketched in our local San Felasco Forest State Park, I bore witness to the broken limbs, torn out roots, and fallen trunks that made up the hurricanes' crushing imprint. The painting "Deadwood Dream" 2003 with its broken stump and fallen log was the precursor to the series I came to call "Monuments." This is a series of 5 moderately small paintings that memorialize the still-holding roots and the torn-off trunk bases. They are the reminders of the great trees sacrificed in the tornado winds that accompanied the hurricanes of 2004.
In the months and years after the hurricanes I continued drawing the details of the wind fall. The cracked branches, tumbled logs, twisted and torn limbs, the exploded stumps, and the pulled up roots, all were recorded into my sketchbooks. Upon reviewing this catalogue of destruction and wondering how to respond to it, I struck on the idea of the "storm in the woods." I would paint the splintered scenes placing the viewer directly into the vortex as the wind wheels the debris across the darkened woodlands. I hope these paintings remind the viewer both of the "sturm and drang" of the German romantics, and the way the American abstract expressionists played forms across their painterly fields. |
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