Robert Mauchessault

Robert Marchessault is a Canadian painter focused on trees.  Much of his work for the past 35 years has been devoted to tree forms and their symbolic meanings.  Whether as individual trees or as groupings in a landscape, his unmistakable style finds ways to move viewers aesthetically and emotionally. An underlying passion for ecological responsibility prompts his art. A tree is universally understood as a metaphor for life; in Marchessault's hands the more subtle and introspective aspects are explored. 

"When my wife and I purchased our first land in 1982 we bought 20 acres of an old farm.  There were three empty fields that we decided to plant in trees.  The tiny saplings were so fragile and delicate.  Drought and animal predation was a problem.  For years we protected them from a variety of threats, watering, keeping the choking grasses down, and fighting off the voracious ground hogs who’d chew them down. I think we lost half of them in the first few years.  But every spring we’d replant where needed.  It was a labor of love, passion, determination, we wanted to see a forest grow.  After 14 years things were looking good when a tornado ripped through the property toppling the old growth white pines that had been there for probably 200 years. We were devastated and a job offer at Georgian College in another part of the province decided us on moving.  However, the young trees we planted survived the tornado.  Now, 37 years later, that property supports a beautiful mature forest of pines. We can learn from trees that we can be bent but not broken. We bought our current land in 1997 and planted new trees again.  22 years later we are surrounded with beautiful mature arboreal splendor.  I feel privileged to have lived long enough to make a forest twice. I have learned perseverance." - Robert Mauchessault