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Artist Tacita Dean on taking a portrait of a tree  

NARRATOR: 

Artist Tacita Dean on how she found her way to this tree, Beauty 

TACITA DEAN: 

In England, I looked for the oldest complete oak tree, which was called Majesty. Now, when I went to photograph Majesty, which had been growing, they don’t really know how long, but they think it’s at least seven- or eight-hundred years old—next door to Majesty was a sister tree of similar, but not the same age, which they call Beauty. 

And I wasn’t expecting to find Beauty; I went for Majesty. But seeing Beauty standing next to Majesty, I photographed Beauty, too and I painted around every single branch with white gouache. Something very satisfying about making the tree sculptural. Bringing it out of its background, denying the background. 

NARRATOR: 

But why trees as a subject? 

DEAN: 

Apart from saying something as asinine as saying I love trees, for me, it was also to do with the individuality of a tree and how deformed it becomes, you know, through age. And obviously, there are parallels, not only with myself, but also with some of the older people I’ve been making films of in the last few years. There’s a sort of portraiture going on.