"Root," Mixed Media Installation.
B.J. Vogt
Root
(Part of Happy Tree Friends II Group Show)
Noon-5 p.m.
Paragraph Gallery
23 E. 12th
Kansas City, MO
816.221.5115
Hours Noon-5 p.m., Thursdays and Saturdays
Runs through: June 4
Artist’s site: http://bjvogt.blogspot.com
Gallery Site: http://www.charlottestreet.org
Tell someone to draw a tree, and chances are you’ll get only a partial picture.
People tend to depict trees as existing only from the ground up, as though somehow balanced on the earth. As anyone who has ever tried to pull out a stump can attest, that’s far from the case. That which lies below the soil is as much a part of a tree, as integral to its survival, as its branches, bark and leaves.
Why the perceptual omission? Some of it has to be utilitarian. We think of carrots and turnips and beets in the whole, because we make use of their roots. But unless one is hunting for truffles, crafting a walking stick or flavoring sarsparilla, there’s little reason to associate tree roots with usefulness — even though without them, there would be neither shade nor fruit, nuts nor lumber.
B.J. Vogt gives the subterranean its due in Root, his contribution to the Happy Tree Friends (Part II) group show at the Paragraph Gallery. The St. Louis artist, a graduate of the Kansas City Art Institute, sees it this way:
Roots can be viewed as the beginning of the tree as they provide a stable platform from which the organism can obtain nutrients and grow, much like neurons can be viewed as the beginning point of thought throughout the body; though this idea of a beginning or base in both instances is only a half truth. Roots and neurons carry and transfer information in a complex network, whether it is a body or a forest. However, as they are parts of larger networks they affect and can be affected by the other facets of those networks, as in a competition for space, an infection, or by variations in the amount of the reception of certain stimuli. … As information carriers, roots and neurons connect disparate nodes whose specific functions may vary, however their general purpose is very much the same: to transfer matter and energy from one place to another; or in other words, to live.
As with all the works in this show, that’s a concept worthy of longer discussion than can fit into this space. (Speaking of things verbal, today marks the final diaLog Tree Talk, hosted by artist Kurt Flecksing. At noon, Amy Bhesania and Bill Grotts of Bridging the Gap will talk about the Heartland Tree Alliance’s mission and work.)
The visual impact of Vogt’s piece, however, is immediate — no debate required. Its branches and spikes, framing a tiny structure atop the central core, claim the center of the Paragraph Gallery. It’s as though the roots, tired of being ignored, have broken through the earth to announce themselves. That effect is even stronger after dark, when the installation is lit from without and its shadows take over the walls as well as the space within them.
Root began as a seed in Vogt’s mind, was fed by his imagination and influences, and grew from its mental genesis into the solid form now on display. Now, it’s sending out runners, propagating bits of itself in everyone who sees it — and it’s a sure bet that Vogt’s work will continue to bear fruit, long after this show is a memory.
