Wildberries
Kyle Scheurmann's oil paintings are the documentations of our threatened landscapes that have undergone human-induced trauma. The artist's work is painted on linen, canvas or jute, and characterized by his thoughtful palette and painterly approach; utilizing the subtle nuances of indigo, mauve and violet to great effect. Pieces are presented unframed, and ready to hang.
About Wildberries, the artist states:
Several years ago, well before I spent any meaningful time in ancient forests, I remember taking a hike by myself up into the mountains after first moving to Vancouver Island. It wasn’t too far from home, I was still learning my new surroundings, but it was far enough that I felt I was completely in the middle of nowhere; that I’d found some place truly wild.
The sides of the path were lined with berries. All different kinds and colours. Eventually, I stopped to pick some, filling my hat and imagining a berry feast for lunch.
While I was bent down on the side of the trail, collecting a bunch of the reddest berries, another hiker walked up behind me and politely said,
“Hey, you’re picking the invasive ones!”
I stood up and looked around. Deep in the bush and now at the top of a mountain, my first instinct was to believe that this hiker was lying. No invasive berries could make it all the way up there, right??
“You can tell by the silver stems,” the hiker told me. “You see that bush over there with the green stems, those are local ones. The ones you’re picking with the silver stems, they shouldn’t be here. Probably came over from Europe at some point.”
The hiker picked a few of the silver stemmed berries for himself.
“Don’t worry, they’re still fine to eat.”
I said “thanks” as he walked away, mouth full of berries.
Then I just stood there alone for a long time, maybe ten minutes, quietly by myself.
Just looking around.
It was in this moment that I realized there was a code to the forest I had been too naive to understand.
There was a way to read the forest that I had never considered before.
There was a Secret Knowledge in the forest that I was just beginning to learn.
I’d never see the forest the same way again. - Kyle Scheurmann
