“You and the tree in your backyard come from a common ancestor. A billion and a half years ago, the two of you parted ways. But even now, after an immense journey in separate directions, that tree and you still share a quarter of your genes.” So wrote American novelist Richard Powers (b. 1957) in The Overstory (2018). Markus Guschelbauer’s (b. 1974) photographs speak to this world of disconnect, in which roughly a third of all trees have been cut down. Today, there are just four billion hectares left, roughly 400 trees for every person. In these closely cropped images, Guschelbauer places singular trunks against eye-popping frames, juxtaposing flanks of lichen and peeling bark with candy-coloured backgrounds. The results are beguiling and conceptually challenging. Each composition considers the unique beauty of trees, whilst simultaneously presenting them like products on a supermarket shelf – items to be picked and consumed.
Worlds of Disconnect
