Tree Museum in NYC inspired by Irish-born artist's love of nature

Katie Holten's interactive Tree Museum a joy for nature lovers

“It's the only Corktree in the Tree Museum and its branches are contorted and really windblown—quite unusual, and it reminds me of trees in the west of Ireland!” Another tree that stands out for her is an American Elm outside Cardinal Hayes High School. “It's really large and old, probably as old as the Concourse. Eric Sanderson, landscape ecologist, speaks on the audio guide and his story is about how the Grand Concourse and the South Bronx was 400 years ago, at the time Henry Hudson sailed up the Hudson River (2009 is the quadracentennial of the event).”

Katie Holten was born in Dublin in 1975, the eldest of four children, and grew up in the Longford countryside, “surrounded by fields with cows.” In reflecting on how her childhood in the landscape of Ireland influenced her work, Katie said, “the garden was always important in our family and I remember getting up very early, at dawn, to weed…I loved weeding, walking the fields, and climbing trees, and I’ve always felt very connected to place. All of my work as an artist comes out of this interest in place and inherent connection to the land.” At age ten, Katie moved with her family to Ardee, Co. Louth, where her mother still lives and where Katie returns to visit when possible.

Katie studied fine art and history of art at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin and the Hochschule der Kunste in Berlin. She represented Ireland at the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003 and came to New York in 2004 on a Fulbright Scholarship, “specifically to look at 'nature' in the urban context. It was something I didn't really know about, as I grew up in the countryside … I really started to see how alien 'nature' is to city dwellers. I see everything as part of nature—buildings, skyscrapers, bridges, tunnels, suburban homes, farms, motorways—it's all planted on the earth and part of the 'system' of the planet. It's the interconnectedness of things that interests me.”

The Tree Museum opened June 21 with a parade from the Bronx Museum of the Arts to the Lorelei Fountain in Joyce Kilmer Park. It remains through October 12. Katie will have a solo exhibition at the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin in early 2010.

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Nster.com