Jason Middlebrook tackles environmental degradation and the effects of human interference in ways that are both humorous and poignant. His interest in the importance of trees as ecological providers and the long history that a single tree embodies, led him to create a series of mosaic tree stumps. Constructed from building materials, the basic form is made from fiberglass with bark simulated in mosaic. The patterns play on the vernacular and decorative associations of mosaic. When displayed indoors these decorated stumps have the appearance of footstools for human use, far removed from the desecrated forest. The impression changes when the sculpture is situated in the landscape itself. Copper Beech Memoirs pays tribute to the majestic copper beech on the edge of Wave Hill’s Great Lawn that suffered from beech decline. This elegiac sculpture memorializes the most recent tree to be lost at Wave Hill. Here the mosaic pattern mimics the bark coloration and references the ancient, architectural use of mosaic in devotional and spiritual settings.

Beech decline is a devastating disease that weakens European, rather than native, beeches from Washington, DC to Maine. In the New York area, Central Park and Long Island estates, such as the Planting Fields Arboretum, have lost valuable specimens. In 2000 Wave Hill’s copper beech on the Great Lawn showed signs of thinning canopy, reduced leaf size, and dying limbs. As the conditioned worsened, fertilizer treatments and systemic fungicides did not halt the advance of the disease and the tree was removed in January 2005. It was replaced by a disease resistant Princeton elm. Four other copper beech trees remain in good health on the grounds.

Jason Middlebrook has exhibited this year at the Sara Meltzer Gallery, New York, NY, the Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, and Galeria Pack, Milan, Italy. Earlier exhibitions include The Beginning of the End at the Aldrich Contemporary Museum of Art, Ridgefield, CT; Empire of Dirt at the Centro Arte Contemporanea, Siena, Italy; Nylon Gallery, London, England; and Dig at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, NY. He received his MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and his BA in Fine Arts from the University of California at Santa Cruz.

For more information visit www.sarameltzergallery.com.

Study for Copper Beech Memoirs, 2005
acrylic, graphite, ink and colored pencil
30” x 46” diptych
Courtesy of the artist and Sara Meltzer Gallery, New York, NY

Copper Beech Memoirs, 2005
fiberglass, ceramic tile, glass tile, grout
27” x 48”
Courtesy of the artist and Sara Meltzer Gallery, NY, NY

Installation front lawn, Glyndor Gallery, Wave Hill, 2005

Copper Beech Memoirs, 2005
detail