David Mathews: ARBOREAL

“To enter a wood is to pass into a different world in which we ourselves are transformed.” Roger Deakin, ‚Wildwood: A Journey Through Trees‘

The built world envelops us; the natural world recedes, increasingly relegated to mere spectacle and passing curiosity. As W.H. Auden so succinctly once wrote, “a culture is no better than its woods.” Based on a comic of the same name* (davidm.co/arboreal), Arboreal uses the medium of drawn animation to form an evocation and appreciation of the wooded world, seeking to echo the slow, quiet grandeur that suffuses it in the hope of gently leading viewers out of their urban constrictions and back into the woods.

* Available in print from House Publications: housepublications.tumblr.com