Being the artist I am in present time
‘Fire Tree’ ©Kris Cahill 2022; gouache and pencil on paper, 9.5” x 13”; available at my online shop on this website
Some of the very first paintings I made as a new painter were of trees.
There’s always been something about trees that inspires me. As I started being a painter, my artist’s eye was mesmerized by their frozen dramatic winter forms, and I imagined them dancing and communicating with everyone who passed by. Unafraid, not shy in the least, the winter trees said hello to me and demanded I paint them. So I did. This was back when I lived in the city of Chicago, the place I was born.
My earliest tree paintings began happening around 1993, and most of the early trees were bare, communicating through their dramatic bare forms. Often they were surrounded by color and sometimes portrayed in a high contrast composition. They were always alone, one tree, no competition around for the viewer’s attention. Look at this tree!
Sometimes there were leaves around the tree, blowing in the wind, or piled on the earth, a few dangling from branches. These early paintings were all created using my former painting technique: acrylic paint in reverse on clear vinyl, then stretched around a frame and wired. All of my early tree pieces are gone, sold years ago. I didn’t keep a single one, and at this stage in my art making journey, I know why.
I’ve always been good at letting the work leave the studio, to live with others. I’m not hanging onto my old hits, time to evolve. But I love revisiting them again, and remembering and re-learning some of what made me tick as a painter back then.
Here’s a few of my trees: from left to right ‘Something in the Wind’; ‘Moment in Time’, ‘Looking For True North’, and ‘A Place of Being’.
Happily, I just located my old slides from all those years and many paintings ago, and hope to have prints available of these soon.
In the meantime, I’m deeply engrossed in pulling out all of my old work, my archives, and updating my relationship to it. It’s healing and humbling. I am realizing a lot of truths for myself as an artist in present time!
I am not the same artist I was when I made these works. I am focused on different images and ways of seeing.
I am becoming the artist that I need and want to be in present time.
The tree pieces below are all available as fine art prints and other objects at my Fine Art America store. Find them here: Kris Cahill on FAA
Above, left to right: ‘Deepest Night Tree’; ‘Gold Autumn Leaves’; ‘Night Tree’; and ‘Diva’. Click each piece to see the full image.
I’m deep in the process of discovering my new voice as an artist. As a painter I’ve got an expanded interest in my materials and how to work with the new tools and supplies that have become available since I last painted. My current desire is to work with techniques and media I’ve not typically worked with, and it excites me so much!
After 22+ years of educating, growing, and expanding myself spiritually, as a psychic, psychic teacher, writer, and more - I realize I have much more to say as an artist. I’m so grateful to have reached this place, it is perfect timing.
