Susan Applegate's tree paintings are like beloved old relatives

Susan Applegate's "Trees of Home,'' a collection of about a dozen large oil paintings now on exhibit at DIVA, is a set of intimate portraits of old friends. And, yes, her friends are trees. This series of calm, subtle paintings, which range from about four feet square to roughly half that size, focuses on individual trees as distinct personalities.

"Alive Oak," with its downturned branches, is a slightly dour relative who's nevertheless welcome at dinner now and then. "Oak Dance" shows a lively tree whose character is reflected in a shimmering background. The enormous tree obliquely shown in "Ascension" seems nearly to have left the pull of Earth's gravity through sheer size.

Applegate's tree portraits are simple and clean and done in muted colors. The subjects, in most cases, overflow the edges of her canvas, as though a photographer had zoomed all the way in on someone's face or hands, leaving the rest of the body to imagination. Trees, of course, are alive, but Applegate's trees may be more alive than others.

They seem about to move, like quiet dinosaurs whose lives are played out on a different scale of space and time than our own.

You half expect these paintings to have changed when you walk away for 10 minutes and then come back for a second look.

This is a small show but hardly a simple one. The artist knows her subjects well and paints with an easy assurance that masks the depth of her work, which is affecting without being obvious. You'll find no overt statement here, no plea for the environment or easy indictment of chain saws. Instead, the paintings are the artist's invitation to get to know an interesting group of individuals by perusing an unusual family album.

Jan. 23, 2005