The Tree/Sonnet Project

Paul Katz
The Tree/Sonnet Project
Oil, sand and glue on canvas
2003 – 2008

William Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets, poems that tell of love, jealousy, youth, age, art, death and desire. Paul Katz has set himself the task of making paintings that both embody these sonnets and serve as a personal memorial to them.

After a long layover one day at Albany International Airport, Katz envisioned the paintings hanging where travelers could contemplate the words and imagery while they await their departure.

Katz begins each painting by layering sand and glue over stretched canvas, elevating some areas to create a sculptural surface. After painting the entire canvas black, he writes the sonnet with red oil paint on the low-relief areas, methodically avoiding punctuation and normal line breaks. The succession of words is broken instead by the raised forms of an emerging landscape of trees and rocks. Upon reaching the end of the poem, he begins again with the first word, lending a cyclical quality to the form.

The physical presence of the paintings and the density of the language make these sonnets challenging to read with fluidity. Katz experiences them much like the walks he takes through the woods surrounding his studio; the spaces between the trees yielding flickers of light and thoughts, like words emerging from the stillness.