How is it that one man can work
on one brushstroke (and a few spots)
for almost two years?
I thought about
the oriental calligraphers
who spent a lifetime perfecting
that one brushstroke.
Suddenly,
the silence and loneliness
of the painter’s profession
pierce through my heart.
Leaf shows a simple fold
of translucent green paint
that appears as a gesture
of concealment, of implication,
as if the smallest mystery of nature,
the greenness of a leaf,
was being held and protected
within a fold of pigment.
Small reservoirs of oil and Liquin leak
from the top edge of the mark,
and where the green stroke has carried over
to the frame, the paint shows
as a dark varnish, barely perceptible.
With consummate economy,
Leaf draws together nature and art
and shows how natural things live
within and despite history.
Leaf is about the ‘time of plants’
but also about the long durée
which the single brushstroke spills.
The painted wooden frame was added later.
