Drypoint Etching – The Witness Tree

Drypoint Etching – The Witness Tree

At first glance, this drypoint print offers the familiar silhouette of a tree—its limbs branching skyward, reaching instinctively toward the sun. Set within a quiet, minimal landscape, the horizon line cuts across the page, serene and unassuming. The composition appears simple. But as the viewer draws closer, something unexpected emerges.

At the base of the tree, nestled in the stump, is what appears to be an eye—open, watchful, and looking directly back at us. Its presence is ambiguous, unsettling, and strangely intimate. Is it a mirror to our gaze, a subtle provocation? A reminder that so much of human knowledge—science, myth, memory—has been built on the foundational act of observation? Or does it simply invite us to wonder at the sentient presence we sometimes feel within the natural world?

The print invites multiple readings, offering no resolution, only a quiet nudge toward reflection. Imagination and inquiry become one.

Etched with delicate line work and pressed by hand onto exquisite Somerset paper, the print balances clarity with nuance. The image is A4 in scale and framed within a generous 37 x 28 cm sheet, allowing room for framing or float mounting.

A quietly startling piece—at once landscape, metaphor, and gaze—asking us, perhaps, whether we are the watchers, or the watched.