Birch Trees 

Editor: Kimon Loghi’s "Birch Trees" is presented as a painting that is a heavily textured oil on, well, we don’t know for sure what the oil is painted on. The trees are shown in almost high relief, and it’s clear Loghi wants to show his work. How would you unpack this painting? Curator: For me, it's all about the "matter" in "matter-painting," especially the way Loghi deploys oil paint as a tangible substance. Look how he builds up the surface, not just to depict trees but to create a real, physical terrain. He foregrounds the labour involved; each brushstroke, each layer of paint, becomes evidence of the artistic process. Editor: So you see it less as representing trees, and more about the literal stuff? Curator: Exactly! Think about what oil paint itself represents. It’s derived from natural resources, refined through industrial processes, and then used to create something we consider "art." Loghi, intentionally or not, shows us the complete material journey that underscores our relationship to the earth and its exploitation for aesthetic or commercial ends. Where was the paint made, and under what conditions? What kind of labour created these forms? The final image is the result of industrial manufacturing of the pigments. Editor: That really makes me think about the whole infrastructure behind even what seems like a simple landscape. Curator: Precisely. The landscape genre often romanticizes nature, but Loghi’s emphasis on materiality can subvert that. Are we looking at trees, or at the industrial forces necessary to represent them? Editor: I see it now, thanks to you I’ll think more about the production when viewing "nature". Curator: Absolutely. Materiality lets us appreciate the complex dialogue between nature and technology in art.