Walking through temperate rainforest in North West Tasmania, I was fascinated by the gnarled and mossy trunk of an old Myrtle tree, with colonies of tiny Kangaroo ferns clinging to its vertical surface and reaching toward the light of the upper forest story. These ferns are an epiphytic species, in that they can capture their water and nutrient needs from the bark of the tree, rather than directly from the soil. It is a beautiful example of the ecosystem of a tree – a fractal forest within the larger forest.
In this artwork I depict a single rainforest tree as being a complex and diverse landscape. I have emphasised the fern forest by showing it from a close-up foreground perspective, with the middle ground ascending into the distant tree tops. I have combined the two techniques of linocut and monotype printmaking, with their respective hard and soft edges, to accentuate the clear-cut fern leaves in contrast with the soft clumps of mossy bark.