Would you stop to wonder? Could you just pass it by as you might any other tree? Would you make a judgment about the rightness or wrongness of such a sight? Would you smile? Frown?
I've not come across any blue trees near my home, but if one goes to Seattle, Sacramento, Houston, or about nine other public installation locations, you'll find them. Sculptor and performance and installation artist, Konstantin Dimopoulos explains that he creates artworks that "are grounded in my sociological and humanist philosophies. In my environmental installation, The Blue Trees, the colour and the Tree come together to transform and affect each other; the colour changing the Tree into something surreal, something out of this world. While the Tree, rooted in this earth reflects what we may lose."
Think about it, Dimopoulos, has made the passerby stop when he would not otherwise have. And she does think. Yes, we have had our impact on the trees, and here it is obvious. Elsewhere, we might not notice. So, also in The Blue Trees installation, the trees, a part of the natural world, are impacted by humans, yet here Dimopoulos has given them a voice. They call out to us to bring all trees to mind. We are jarred out of our lackadaisical hypnosis, and we are compelled to know more.
And when enough people stop to question, we can no longer idly allow the decimation of our forests in a mass of anonymity. We become accountable. And in this step, I see Dimopoulos as having succeeded beautifully poetical in his artworks.
Dimopoulos tells us that he has "always known that art is and has always been an extended part of nature and that art can effect social change. For that to happen one has to move out of the art institutions and galleries and move outside among nature and human beings in their living spaces." I couldn't agree more! To learn more visit http://www.kondimopoulos.com/thebluetrees/about/.
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