The Mind Rooted Skyward: The Lawrence Tree

The Mind Rooted Skyward is a surreal reimagining of Georgia O’Keeffe’s contemplative piece  The Lawrence Tree , a painting born from the artist’s perspective of lying beneath a tall pine outside the D. H. Lawrence Ranch in New Mexico. In this conceptual reinterpretation, the tree becomes not merely a natural form but a symbolic bridge between the subconscious and the cosmic. Here, it sprouts not only from the earth, but also from an open book—its roots tangled in thought, memory, and the infinite black matter of possibility. 

The viewer is drawn upward, as if reclined beneath the tree’s outstretched limbs, just as O’Keeffe was. But in this updated visual journey, the branches extend into a realm of dualities—one side bathed in burning crimson, the other in spectral light. The tree splits itself like a mind in thought, red on the left like passion and memory, white on the right like clarity and transcendence. Suspended between them, a luminous book serves as the cradle of life, knowledge, and dream—a holy manuscript from which the tree of consciousness arises. 

The composition is grounded by deep, shadowed roots that resemble neural pathways. These are not simply roots of a tree—they are cords of cognition, coiled thoughts, unresolved questions that grip the void beneath them. They reach downward into a misty, infinite ground lit by a faint halo, evoking an atmosphere of awe and fear. A lone human figure stands beneath this vast structure, dwarfed and silent, gazing upward not in despair but in devotion, a seeker before the sacred unknown. 

The branches above spread into clouds that defy weather systems. On the left, the red cloud burns with the texture of rising smoke, signaling memory, conflict, and fire—an echo of creative unrest. On the right, the branches shimmer into a soft silver glow, studded with floating lights and falling stars, suggesting divine imagination, purity, and insight. The duality conjures both the fire of earthly experience and the calm of celestial wisdom, bound together in the one living organism of the tree. 

Color is the emotional marrow of this reinterpretation. The red is ferocious, alive with heat and heartbeat. It evokes not only blood but language—the raw expression of Lawrence’s words and O’Keeffe’s emotional connection to this place. This red is not peaceful—it demands attention. It crackles with the urgency of lived experience, the kind that artists write and paint from because it burns too deep to contain. 

The dark blue and black background into which the roots descend is not emptiness but potential. It holds the dreamscape of unspoken thought, like the unconscious mind at midnight. Within it, the tree becomes a breathing metaphor for consciousness itself: part buried, part exposed, always growing in directions we do not fully understand. 

The right side, coated in silvery whites, soft grays, and hints of electric blue, serves as the visual counterbalance to red's force. This portion of the composition is ethereal and meditative. The glimmers here do not demand but invite. They are symbols of revelation, of a mind opening not in fire but in stillness. The tree on this side becomes a vessel of wisdom—a white library of light, offering quiet clarity and sacred pause. 

In Georgia O’Keeffe’s original painting, she chose an unconventional angle—looking up into the pine tree from the ground—turning a simple observation into a cosmic visual meditation. That gaze is preserved here but transformed into a layered metaphor about the nature of imagination, thought, and artistic origin. The tree is no longer just a pine at night; it is the branching mind, the root of narrative, the altar of creative power. 

The use of an open book at the heart of the composition directly nods to D. H. Lawrence’s literary legacy, merging text with vision. For O’Keeffe, this tree was a private cathedral. In this reconstruction, it becomes a universal cathedral, rooted in pages, rising into galaxies.