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The techniques applied in Tree Stokes' paintings are a result of disparate influences. Several of these are the paintings
of the artists of the Stieglitz circle, Abstract Expressionism, traditional Chinese and Japanese brush painting, and the paintings
of John Sell Cotman. Larger transparent puddles of color are layered and become gradually smaller, more detailed and more
opaque. Each brush mark is a slow- drying puddle. The paper provides the whites and complements provide the blacks. This is
similar in technique to the English transparent watercolor paintings of the 18th and 19th centuries.
The artist's first gallery representation was with Christopher Grimes' Site 311 Gallery in Pacific Grove. While living in
Northern California she was also represented by Susan Cummins of Mill Valley and Michael Himovitz of Sacramento. While in
Los Angeles her work has been represented by both the pilot Parnas Gallery of the J. Paul Getty Museum and Bergamot’s
Threshold Gallery. She is currently represented by Gallery 825/laaa and the Art Rental and Sales Gallery at LACMA. Her teaching
experience includes Arizona State University in Tempe and Southern California Institute of Archtitecture in Santa Monica where
she taught watercolor.
| "Veiled Venus" |
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| Watercolor and graphite |
Tree Stokes' Artist's Statement
The full Venus site and its composite details are variations of an imagined place. The place is not, with certainty, where
it appears to be, nor is it quite pinned down. The aerial viewer is placed at a great distance spanning the site, or is drawn
more closely above. The perspective abstracts.
A history of flying dreams unconsciously influences the work. The first conscious and memorable influence was a stunning aerial
view of Spain from an airplane. This experience was very closely followed by the profound impact of my initial encounter with
ancient architectural ruins in Spain. Portals, they so powerfully expressed both the eternal and the temporal.
These memories were displaced until many years later when--serendipity--I chanced upon a catalyst. A nineteenth century drawing
of the ruins of the Temple of Venus shocked my memory and I recalled what I had forgotten.
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