Memory of Trees
MEMORY OF TREES
By Eliza Day-Green
Curated by Aneesa Shami Zizzo
December 10, 2022–February 4, 2023
Memory of Trees is a solo exhibition of new work by Los Angeles-based artist, Eliza Day-Green. Completed over the course of one year, Day-Green’s latest series reflects on her month-long residency at a remote sheep farm in Iceland’s Westfjords. Living in this secluded and foreign environment led the artist to reconnect with her own New Zealand roots and familial traditions in fiber and textiles, revisiting techniques passed along from generations of tailors and sheep farmers. Through felting, crochet, stitching, needle binding and weaving, Day-Green cultivates the implicit memories of family while meditating on her time abroad, recording these ruminations of personal history and placemaking through material exploration.
Exhibition Views of Memory of Trees, photos by Stacey Meineke.
Day-Green made a point of visiting Iceland during réttir, the annual gathering of sheep, to create work with fleece and wool. Participating in this long standing tradition inspired several pieces, including Rettir, an installation-based work depicting a wandering flock of sheep and Fleece, a tactile piece showcasing raw, unprocessed fleece. Using Iceland's mainstay resource of wool conjured many memories for the artist, especially of her mother working with handicrafts. Playing with the unique properties of this wool “opened the creative floodgates” for Day-Green, revitalizing her natural propensity for fiber art.
Other works include abstracted memory landscapes of Iceland's striking environment, in which Day-Green translates waterfalls, geysers, volcanos, black sand beaches and steaming lava fields into soft sculptures and mixed media works. With the absence of trees creating an otherworldly landscape, the artist imagined the memories held beneath the island's surface. Icelandic folktales fueled these thoughts, resulting in whimsical and dreamy landscapes, including Kintegata, a memory map of the paths Day-Green traveled, Nest, a sculptural allegory of a whooper swan nest, and the Cygnus Cygnus triptych illustrating the trope of swans molting as a metaphor for transformation.
Memory of Trees is the culmination of Day-Green's musings on her time in Iceland, as well as a celebration of her textile roots. This collection of memory-embedded objects marks a growth edge in her practice, with hopefully more fiber and textile-based work included in future series.
