Drawn in by the realistic scale of the longitudinal canvas, the viewer enters an intimate face-to-face relationship with this tree trunk of teeming energy, slippery lines and empty creamy lacunae. The tree and the landscape are fused against the inky sky through a rich application of melting marks that create an air of psychedelic unreality, with bleached nodding sprigs, grasses and luminous flowers adding to this magical space.

Trojanowski’s work speaks to the solemn and fantastical heart of wintertime. Here he employs his signature style of acidic and enigmatic landscapes to evoke the cold and icy sunlight of darker days but opens a space for daydreaming and the bright and unabating desire we have to reconnect with the outside – to the richness and magic of the ecological world around us.

Trojanowksi’s use of multiple marks of sensuously applied oil paint builds a spiralling dance of vital energy. In places, paint is thinned to a point where the pigment frays in dilution, creating fernlike patterning that stains the very fabric of the work.