The Birth of Color: Between Creation and Memory

Claude Monet’s  Three Trees in Summer , painted in 1891, was a reflection of his fascination with nature’s ever-changing presence. The three trees stood tall, swaying beneath a golden summer sky, their branches reaching toward the heavens as if whispering secrets to the wind. Light played between the leaves, shifting with the movement of the day, while Monet captured their essence in his signature Impressionist style. The trees were not just subjects but witnesses to time, standing resilient yet delicate in their impermanence. 

In this surreal conceptual reinterpretation, the trees are no longer confined to the physical world but have become part of the very act of creation. Paintbrushes rise from the earth like monuments, towering over the landscape, their bristles soaked in vibrant pigments. The essence of nature is no longer separate from art; it is being formed, reborn through strokes of color. A floating canvas, dripping with hues of blue, orange, and green, hovers in midair as if capturing the fleeting beauty of the world before it vanishes. The trees, once rooted in Monet’s Impressionist realm, are now mere echoes within the artistic process itself, dissolving into brushstrokes and pigment. 

The sky is heavy with storm clouds, swirling with the weight of creation. It is not the peaceful summer sky of Monet’s vision but one filled with tension, the moment before something new is brought to life. The brushes, both tools and symbols, stand as silent sentinels, waiting for the next touch of inspiration to move them. The ground beneath them is soft, like dust or remnants of past works, reminding us that every masterpiece is built upon layers of history, memory, and forgotten strokes. 

The color palette is a stark contrast between the past and the present. The monochrome background, filled with shadows and stormy textures, represents the uncertainty and raw emotion that precedes creation. In contrast, the splashes of color bursting from the brushes and the canvas symbolize the emergence of new life, the translation of nature into something tangible. Blue, the color of depth and introspection, merges with fiery orange, the hue of passion and movement, while green remains a reminder of life’s persistence. The vibrancy of these colors against the grayscale landscape emphasizes the power of artistic expression to transform the world around us. 

As an artist, I wanted to explore the relationship between nature, memory, and creation. Monet painted trees as living entities, capturing their movement and spirit with every brushstroke. In this reimagining, the trees no longer exist as they once did; they have been absorbed into the creative process itself, becoming color, form, and expression. The paintbrushes, once mere tools, now hold the weight of an entire landscape, standing as both creators and remnants of something once whole. The floating canvas is not just an object—it is a moment, a fragment of time suspended before it is finished, before it is forgotten. 

This piece is about the act of creation itself. The way artists pull from the world around them, blending reality and imagination to forge something new. The trees in Monet’s original work were observers of time, but here, they have become the medium through which time is recorded and reinvented. The shifting sky and grounded brushes remind us that art is never static, that it is always in motion, caught between what was and what will be. In this surreal space, the trees continue to grow—not in the soil, but in strokes of color and layers of memory, forever part of the endless cycle of creation.