Benjamin Langford

Weeping Spruce, 2024

Benjamin Langford photographed the original image in Weeping Spruce (2024) in an arboretum after a storm had pulled down many of the trees. The unpredictability of a storm upended the otherwise manicured order of the garden. “I think of this as nature pulling back the curtain on our attempts to define and experience it,” says Langford. “It reveals itself to be chaotic and uncontrollable.” For me, the interesting tension in this piece is the contrast between the airiness of these weeping branches, and the chaotic, dark piling of fallen branches that obstruct the bottom half of the composition. I think this work plays into this kind of fantasy of falling into and being overwhelmed by the “Yin” of nature– something dark, chaotic, and unknowable swallowing the viewer. Like Twilight (2024), I see this piece as having a stage-like quality. The background feels bright and pastoral, like a painted backdrop, which contrasts with the dark and chaotic movement of gnarled branches in the foreground The branches in the top half of the image have such a languid quality– they seem to bleed downward across the sky in a very delicate way– reminiscent of lacey curtains or decorative motifs, in an almost Rococo or Baroque way. –Benjamin Langford

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