Under Tree Canopies with Linda Westin
Illuminated Dendrology
Linda Westin
2019
Photographer Linda Westin depicts phantasmagorical clearings in the middle of a forest that seems inaccessible to the non-initiated.
Vegetal psychedelia
The series of photographs depicts a succession of tree canopies opening towards a starlit sky. The trees are precisely illuminated revealing warm colors and dendroid structures. Head upwards, the walk in the forest ends in a dreamlike fantasy where illusion and reality merge. It is a staging of a transformed reality where the senses blur the rational and where where its buried delusions are revealed.
The surreal atmosphere that emanates from the photos is obtained after long walks in the forest. It projects us face to face with a paradox: if we end up alone in the middle of a forest, is it better to turn on a light and feel crushed by the density of the vegetation and the chimerical visions of shadows and lights, or is it better to stay in the darkness and fear of what we cannot see? Linda Westin chooses to turn on the light and take us to the heart of a dense forest where solitude plays with our senses. The photographer was inspired by scientific imaging and microscopic fluorescence to create these images, and no doubt the idea is to disrupt our visual and sensory nerve channels. Indeed, when looking at the images it is easy to be torn between the fear of being alone in the middle of nature and the wonder in front of what seems to be a psychotropic hallucination.
In the middle of the forest there’s an unexpected clearing which can only be found by those who have gotten lost –Tranströmer












 © Linda Westin