Any showing of new work by printmaker Wendy Orville is a special event for her many collectors and followers. But this summer’s show seems especially auspicious: after years with the Davidson Galleries, Orville has joined the fine roster of artists at the Harris/Harvey Gallery. Her first solo exhibit at this new space is a showing of recent monotypes that explore a new thematic direction in her work, as alluded to in the show title, Seeing Trees.

It’s true that we’ve been seeing trees in Orville’s prints throughout her career–some of her most emblematic images feature a tree or two. But note the plural form in the show title: It reflects the artist’s shift from observing a tree in isolation to considering forests and other large gatherings of trees. 

She is drawn to windswept coastal conifers like those at Point Wilson in Port Townsend, and riparian woodlands like those at the Nisqually Wildlife Refuge.  But she also finds inspiration in a docile suburban park, past the swing sets and pickleballers. Wherever there’s a grove or stand or forest of trees, she’s there to explore its potential for image making.

People tend to mistake Orville’s monotypes for black-and-white photography; closer inspection shows how painterly they are, how unfussy and free. The artist earned a Masters of Fine Art in painting, then dallied with printmaking some time later, and was soon wholly absorbed by the process. Her lack of formal training in the art form helps to account for the originality of her monotypes. 

Orville sketches with dark charcoal to work out her compositions. The real magic occurs in the translation to ink. It’s here that those “photographic” details emerge, often by removing ink from the printing plate with rags, squeegees, and Q-tips. These marks convince you that sunlight is spilling on underbrush, or glinting off ripples on a peaceful bay. Her graceful tonal blends capture subtle changes in shade or vegetation, and convey distance and atmospheric phenomena. In twilight works like “Winter Forest No. 2” you can see and almost feel the mist rolling in through the thicket. 

Ambiguity and mystery, spontaneity and surprise are always in play. In “Port Gamble Grove” and “Forest Edge, Port Gamble,” she lifts ink from the mass of black woods in a series of quick vertical strokes—tree trunks in the forest. The more forceful strokes read as trees on the sunlit perimeter, while more tenuous strokes define trees in the shadowy interior. This addition (achieved by subtraction) gives realistic spatial depth to the woods, and it enriches the emotional landscape—the dark forest as a primal motif, a place of fear, a place to be drawn to. 

In terms of visual energy and rhythm, these same quick strokes in the woods establish a strong pulse moving horizontally across the plane. Maybe it’s this motion that gives those high-altitude clouds their sense of expansive silent stillness. In “Port Gamble Grove” the strokes march gently downwards to suggest the underlying landform. You may not notice at first that one stroke is diagonal, to render a tree at a tilt, as if weakened by a wind gust. This touch adds subtle drama to the scene without calling attention to itself. Nothing ever seems too showy or forced in Orville’s work; secretive details patiently await their discovery.

Certain prints in Seeing Trees seem to bend the norms established in Orville’s earlier work. “Battle Point, Flooded” is twice as wide as it is tall, a departure from the squarer format the artist prefers. But that wide horizon supports the disorienting scene—a flat parkland overtaken by floodwaters. Water standing everywhere mirrors the bright sky so that we are flooded with light as well as with water. Basic distinctions are dissolved—where has the ground gone? Where does the water end and sky begin? The park itself seems astonished at its predicament. But if the flood is the antagonist here, we have a protagonist in the row of old maples. Planted on a berm that lifts them just above the waterline, the trees stand tall over standing water, images of stability in one respect and of fragility in another.

One more piece in Seeing Trees stands slightly apart from previous work, “Grand Forest.” Here the viewer does not look out toward the scene, but looks up from the forest floor into the surrounding crowns of trees that tower overhead. Trunks and branches huddle in from all four sides of the frame, nearly blocking out sky—an unexpected move for Orville, who exults in space and light. The sense of enclosure and restless energy strays from her customary voice. Some will see and feel something joyous here, I’m sure—Orville allows that her prints are often seen as “cheerfully moody.” But I’m left unsettled by “Grand Forest.” I feel that I am no longer gazing at the forest, but that I am occupying it, and the forest is looking at me. (OK, trees seeing? Maybe I need to get out more.)

Orville seems vexed that it took so many years of living in the Pacific Northwest to see that the woods are a compelling subject. (She was busy with other fascinations—skies and cloudscapes, coastal wetlands, animals.) The wait was worth it. Her best monotypes feel strangely like one’s own personal memories. The thought is never “I want to go to there,” but more like “Yes, I’ve been there, wherever it is. I was there and it was sweet like that, and I felt very alive in that place.”

Tom McDonald

Tom McDonald is a writer and musician living on Bainbridge Island, Washington.

“Seeing Trees” is on view from August 1 through August 31 at Harris/Harvey Gallery, located at 1915 First Avenue in Seattle, Washington.  Hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. For more information, please visit www.harrisharveygallery.com.