•     Acrylic on Wood Panel   ~~  SOLD  July 2023
  
•     45 x 60 cm (23.6 x 17.7 inches)
•     Private Collection, Virginia
  

Ulivo nel Campo [Olive Tree in the Field]

    I started this portrait of an olive tree just after I passed the written part of the Italian driver's license exam.  I found that exam a challenge [that has lasted most of 2018 as I tried to get over the language barrier] and this painting was a great stress-release and 'welcome back to work' celebration.

     I have always had a spiritual connection with trees.  My mother would always look outside and up when it was time to call me home when I was a child.  I would sit in the trees for hours, quietly thinking, observing, listening.  The olive trees, at least in Tuscany, have such unique shapes and twisted, gnarly branches and sometimes even torn and hollowed out trunks that they have always seemed like individual personalities.

     Maybe it is true that nearness breeds fondness.  I have watched the trees here, this one in particular, over the last several years, especially when I was carving stone in the same spot where I stood to make this painting.  It is lovely how the sun passes over the silver-grey-greenish leaves of an olive tree.  Rape is growing in the field [campo in Italian], shown in the background.  A seasonal, yet now dried creek is behind that campo.  The trees growing up around the creek bed are causing an area of shadows.

     This acrylic painting was created on a wooden panel with two coats of gesso vero [true gesso].  I hope that he finds a good home.

Peace,


Kelly Borsheim, artist

~ BorsheimArts.com