adnan agha
interdisciplinary designer & artist
how to draw a tree
as an independent project at RISD, i decided to explore the idea of how to draw a tree. this project comes from my initial steps into a drawing practice. after taking an industrial design sketching class, i tried to draw regularly whenever possible. but as i tried to draw a tree, i found myself confronted with an impossible task. there were too many branches, i couldn’t tell where they were in space, and couldn’t put them on the page before they moved.
but surely the very premise of this project is flawed. drawing a tree is trivial; we’d all agree that even the drawing on the right is a tree. and while this may be true, it also shows how much we can leave out in a drawing of a tree. it’s very easy to see them as simply a trunk that emerges from the ground plane and supports an inaccessible, vaguely spherical space.
perspective
every drawing will naturally leave out some aspects of the subject. in thinking about drawing and projection, i approach the subject of tree from three main perspectives: architecture, visual art, and computation. unlike humans, computers are very good at performing repetitive tasks consistently and predictably.
planning
in studying architecture i have been exposed to a variety of projection methods and spatial design strategies. one of the fundamental drawings of architecture is the plan. to the right is an iterated tree “plan,” a compilation of the intersections shown in the diagram above.
mold growth
while this project is premised on two-dimensional representation, the move in to three dimensions is an important step in order to grasp the scope of the subjects.
these molds, made of silicone, were used to create a cubic space in which to cast a tree. the contrast between the geometric form of the mold and the ambiguous form of the tree speaks further to the way humanity ascribes linearity to the world around us.
a new dimension
these resin cast sculptures are a first attempt at creating a new dynamic of rendering trees. in this depiction, the airflow around a tree is visualized by the resin and ink surrounding the tree’s branches. the roots are also emphasized by their direct exposure and the dematerialization of the ground.
in swapping the visibility of air and ground, i bring attention to what we see (and show) and what we don’t.
part of what makes trees impossible to capture on a page is a simple truth: they are always moving. trees are not static objects despite growing so slowly we barely notice any change. but as I look at any tree, I find movement. in the branches, the leaves, everything is alive and moving.
what is causing this movement? the air, the sun, the animals, life itself. the sway of the tree is on the breath of the world.
branching out
this final iteration of the tree sculpture expands on the branches and roots, treating them as twisted, braided trails that gradually splay in space.
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