Shelter by Jenny Berkenbosch
Jenny Berkenbosch
Shelter
Site #9
Don Wheaton YMCA
(10211 102 Avenue, Edmonton)
Monday-Friday: 5:30am-9pm
Saturday: 7am-6pm
Sunday: 8am-4pm
The paintings in Shelter are primarily oil on stretched canvas or cradled wood panels. Painted abstractly, they use the images of trees to explore colour and form, serving as an homage to the various trees on our farm that surround me on a daily basis.
Apples, 41x41”, Oil on canvas, 2020-2025
ARTIST STATEMENT
“That tree feels as important to me as a house or a good friend. ”
Trees are essential to planetary health. They are essential to human health. Their fragrance in the spring releases feel-good hormones for our bodies. They help regulate weather patterns, sequester carbon, release oxygen, foster biodiversity with their symbiotic relationship to fungi, as well as other living creatures, and they provide beauty, shelter, shade and food for many species.
When I moved to the land I farm on there were not any trees. The wind blew steadily from the northwest, funneled through other more distant landscape elements to pick up speed as it approached our small corner of the prairies; it would batter our tender crops and sometimes blow so hard that nothing felt anchored down enough to withstand it. In our first year here, we planted the trees in a small nursery at the edge of our yard. We tended them and protected them from moose and other animals. After a few years the trees were big enough that they could be replanted along the northwest edges of our farm and closer to our house, where they were sheltered from the wind.
In the fifteen years that we’ve been here, the trees have grown up with us, our children and our farm. We continue to plant more trees, building biodiversity and creating more protection and shelter. Some trees, willows and balsam poplars, have come in voluntarily along the edges of our drainage pond and the ditch along our field.
I feel how the wind is tamed because of the layers of trees that are now so much bigger than before. I see how many birds feel comfortable on our land now that they have places to hide, build nests and find food. In the summer I lie under our tallest tree, the one near our house with the placentas of my children buried at its roots; it is now large enough that my kids can sit in its branches. I have a hammock that hangs from its thick trunk and our picnic tables sit in its dappled shade. That tree feels as important to me as a house or a good friend.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Jenny Berkenbosch paints during the darker months of the year when she isn’t working on the vegetable farm she shares with her husband and family. She explores various ways of using oil paint to represent themes of the natural world, most often depicting plants and trees. She occasionally teaches art classes out of her barn loft studio, called The Nest. Building community is important to Jenny and she is a founding member of the Range Road Art Collective, a group of artists that meet and exhibit together in the area near her rural studio. She is a mom to three teenage boys, and she has a BFA from the University of Alberta.