Pablo Lerma

Pablo Lerma

Stumps

Self Published
8x6 inches
34 pages
Perfect Bound
Printed by Conveyor Arts

From the Artist:

"A year ago, fortuitously, I landed in Minnesota to spend a few weeks.

During my stay I used to take long walks at Rivers Oak. That place is not just an ordinary park, it is a vast forest full of oaks crossed by a river.

Walk after walk, I started to realize that some of the trees were cut.

The stumps were marked with pink spray, but not in a common tonality of pink, that was an acid, intense and flashy pink. A pink color completely artificial in that natural environment.

Stumps is a publication that collects a group of instant images about anonymous interventions found in the nature." "

On the surface , this book might seem to be about trees, nature and it's banal beauty.

Yet, after looking at the book, over and over, I started to see how painful these cut down trees, or Stumps really are. Juxtaposed with this bright pink, almost over the top vibrant color, along side these brown cut down trees, the artificiality of the color becomes overbearing.

n his text, Pablo explains that this pink color was used to mark the trees after they were cut. The spray, and the pink color could have many different meanings inside this small book. 

For me, it represent the marking of death, the marking of the human touch on nature, and it's brutality towards it. The images are all snapshots using instant camera and film. They have that nostalgic and sweet texture and look to them, which only emphasizes the notion of loss. 

All of the images are shot in the same type of POV - looking down towards the trees, as if Pablo is examining them, looking to document their last moment, yet never getting too close to them, or trying to examine them from up close. This typological POV gives the book  a feeling of us traveling along side Pablo in this forrest. Standing next to him while he is taking the photo and moving on to the next stump.

The thing I like most about this book, is in some way it's simplicity. In only a few images and pages, Pablo is able to allow us to walk the forrest with him, look at the nature around him and leave. The vibrant pink color of the cover, with a dark and heavy image of the forrest is a very strong and enticing visual, yet you open the book and suddenly all of the vibrance and 'potential' is gone, and we are left with the sadness of these stumps. 

The book is a clean, poetic little gem which is a true pleasure to look over and over again, finding each time small new details in the images.