Katie DeGroot's exhibition "The Arboreal Life" at Kathryn Markel Fine Arts in New York (April 2–May 9) presents tree paintings that anthropomorphize branches into human-like figures. Works such as "Chit Chat" (2026) and "Family Matters" (2025) depict trees leaning, gesturing, and tangling in ways that suggest intimate relationships, arguments, and familial bonds. DeGroot, who moved from New York City to a farm in upstate Fort Edward, began using fallen branches as models after lacking human subjects, developing compositions that emphasize color, texture, and the interplay of fungi and lichen. Her use of opaque and translucent watercolors balances natural observation with poetic interpretation.
The exhibition matters because it showcases a distinctive shift in DeGroot's practice from figurative painting to a nature-based abstraction that retains human emotional resonance. Her remote location in Fort Edward, away from the Hudson Valley art scene, fosters a disciplined solitude that infuses the work with themes of survival, isolation, and mortality. The paintings, particularly "The Royal We" (2025), move toward a natural mysticism, suggesting an evolving artistic direction. This show highlights how regional isolation can spur creative innovation, and it underscores the enduring relevance of landscape and botanical art in contemporary discourse.