About the artist: Janna Kumi is a Canadian artist based in Metro Vancouver, British Columbia. She was initially trained and worked as a forester and treaty negotiator many years before starting fine art studies at Emily Carr University and completing a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of British Columbia in 2015. Since then, her art practice has been at the intersection of cognition and contemplative practice. Her work is often quite intense, yet varied in execution, comprising of drawings and mixed media works centred mainly upon the tree.
tree cognition . . . as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don't know we don't know. –Donald Rumsfeld, US Secretary of Defense so much going on with trees that I don’t know— layers of bark furrowed peeling leaves variegated needling the riotous serpentine intertwine of roots sheer multiplicity obscuring flowers too though more tenderly trunked are unfinished Gaudis in the garden primary in palette petals coyly whorled slyly sepalled true shades and taxonomies unnamed by me thus unseen are through ancient and cyber texts among the known knowns but once then twice removed granting the known unknowns bark and pith grow silent grain enslaved to a shortfall of tree cognition as when we rowing galleys in straitened spheres worth rent to the sum of nerves and skin are ground to mere toil timber bound in booms— as when the knowing of unknown unknowns no longer seeds sanctity awe things thus revealed scarcely growing
The launching thought beautifully explored.
This one is a gem.