Treeline | Portland State University

Treeline

John Grade

Suspended above the floor of the Karl Miller Center atrium is a large, hollow wooden sculpture in the shape of a bristlecone pine tree, here seen from below.

Photo courtesy of the artist

The suspended sculpture is seen from directly below.

Photo courtesy of the artist

Close-up of a segment of the wooden sculpture, where a branch-like element diverges from the main form.

Photo by Mary McVein

Close-up of part of the sculpture, showing an area where two trunk-like structures can be seen running vertically parallel to each other.

Photo by Mary McVein

Close-up showing the texture of the wooden sculpture’s surface, a grid-like structure with undulating contours.

Photo courtesy of the artist

The sculpture is seen hanging in the atrium of Karl Miller Center, behind a staircase and an elevated walkway.

Photo by Edis Jurcys

On a hillside in the forest, John Grade, a middle aged white man wearing a hat, can be seen applying white casting material to the trunk of a huge bristlecone pine tree.

John Grade applies casting material to a living bristlecone pine tree. Photo courtesy of the artist

View from above as the sculpture is installed by a team of workers in reflective gear.

The sculpture is installed in Karl Miller Center. Photo courtesy of the artist

About the artwork

John Grade
Treeline, 2017
Dimensions(h x w x d): 31' x 12' x 10'
Alaskan yellow cedar and metasequoia
Located in Karl Miller Center, west end of atrium

Treeline is inspired by the Great Basin bristlecone pine, the oldest living species of tree in the world. These trees grow in remote groves around the perimeter of the Great Basin in Nevada, Oregon and California at high elevations where little else can survive. To make this sculpture, artist John Grade first applied a plaster mold over the trunk of a living bristlecone pine, which he then carefully removed and used to shape the wooden sculpture in his studio. Work was carried out in a collaborative group effort between Grade, his personal fabrication team, and a group of visiting students from Portland State University.

Treeline is made primarily from Alaskan yellow cedar salvaged in southeast Alaska; the upper reaches of the sculpture are made from a small Metasequoia tree that was taken down to make way for the construction of Karl Miller Center. The open grid form was derived from microscopic imagery of the cellular structure of a bristlecone pine. The sculpture is suspended adjacent to a five-story wall of windows, providing views of the artwork from outside the building as well as from a variety of angles within.

About the artist

John Grade lives and works in Seattle, Washington. Inspired by changing geological and biological forms and systems in the natural world, Grade works with his studio team to create large-scale site-specific immersive sculptural installations. Impermanence and chance are often central to the work, along with kinetics and relationships between the natural world and architecture. After graduating from the Pratt Institute in New York City, Grade went on to receive the Andy Warhol Grant for Visual Arts, an Arts Innovator Award from the Artists Trust Foundation in Seattle, and grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation. His work is included in the collections of the Boise Art Museum, the Seattle Art Museum, and the Smithsonian Museum of American Art.

See more of John Grade's work on his website.

This work was acquired through Oregon's Percent for Art in Public Places Program, managed by the Oregon Arts Commission.

Banner image: Photo courtesy of the artist.