Landscape with Olive Tree (Offset Painting Patterns)

"Landscape with Olive Tree (Offset Painting Patterns)" is a visual description of a landscape painting. It was inspired by the captivating shapes of ancient olive tree trunks that highlight their enduring qualities and deep relationship with the land where they grow. It also draws inspiration from depictions of olive trees in painting, contemplating how the features and meanings of the tree can be conveyed through digital representations and what new perspectives these interpretations can offer to influence our perception of the tree.

The piece focuses on a 3D scan of an 800-year-old olive tree trunk from the Greek island of Zakynthos. The scan has been assigned a material that uses a 360° stereoscopic image depicting a digital landscape created from real-world 3D DEM data from the same area. The initial heightmap of the island was subsequently altered by applying filters in a terrain creation software, resulting in a digital landscape that deviates from both its original elevation data and the actual terrain. The canvas was “cut” using height information from the same location.

The work is part of “Offset Painting Patterns. Landscapes.”, a collection of paintings mixing 3D scans from nature with born-digital terrains, 3D modeled objects and materials created in a game engine. These landscape paintings are a materialization of an ongoing research on the influence of digital technologies on the patterns of perception and representation of the natural landscape. The series is part of “Obsolete Landscapes” body of work.

Claudia Brăileanu Landscape with Olive Tree (Offset Painting Patterns) video (mp4), 3840 x 2160, 30fps, 01:09, silent, 2023 @c_e_braileanu