Aaron Zulpo makes idealized landscapes that are started in plein air to capture the spirit and essence of the environment they depict and then finished in the calmer atmosphere of the studio where final details can be added. In his first solo show with Taymour Grahne Projects, Zulpo focuses on capturing views of grandiose mountains and the diverse and exciting appearance of Joshua Trees, a type of yucca native to the Californian desert. The artist refers to Joshua Trees as the ‘stars’ of the relatively uniform desert of low-lying foliage.
These trees dwarf all their neighbouring plants by growing as tall as forty feet and have an extremely animated appearance. Some are symmetrical with so many arms they could be mistaken as a common oak or maple tree from a distance. Others have one or two chaotically crooked arms jutting in opposite directions. The pointy leaves that cap off each limb personifies the yucca, and they seem to be waving. These extraordinary plants grow 2 to 3 inches a year, live roughly five hundred to a thousand years, and only grow in a high-elevation desert. This body of work features landscapes from Joshua Tree National Park and the local mountain of Palm Springs, San Jacinto Peak.
In addition to painting Joshua trees to capture their beauty and distinct presence in the desert, Zulpo conveys ecological concerns to bring the viewer’s attention to the issue of climate change and its impact on the ecosystem. These great characters of the desert are one of the species predicted to have their range largely reduced and shifted within the next few years due to wildfires, drought and human activities related to habitat loss. For Zulpo, painting the endangered tree is an attempt to memorialize its nobility and grandeur and keep it alive in our collective memory in case it does go extinct in the near future.
