The tree of life, in works by Nash Gill

CORNWALL — Since Bryan Nash Gill’s unexpected death in 2013 his wife, Gina, has made it her mission to find galleries to exhibit the work. 

Creating art “was a form of breathing for him,” Gill said, standing in front of an impressively large print by her late husband. The flat cross-section of a tree’s center, rings expanding outward toward the frame and printed in a bright barn red boldly greeted visitors to the opening of “Reflections” at the Cornwall Library on Saturday night, Feb. 3. 

That print was an appropriate choice as it was made from an impression of a trunk from the Cornwall yard of the artist’s close friend, Bob Parker. Flattened into near abstraction, Nash Gill’s stump prints appear at first to be a mix of a topographic map and a Rorschach test. Closer examination illuminates the details within the image. Around the growth rings there is evidence of bark chipping away from the tree, seen in the irregular edges. White dashes of space, seemingly errors in the paint transfer at first, reveal themselves to be the indentations from where the chain saw hit when the tree was cut down.

For some people, stumps, logs and lumber are mere evidence of routine labor; Nash Gill’s interest in the patterns in wood, its curved inconsistencies and accidental motifs, extended to even the most unpoetic of scenes: Home Depot. 

In his book “Woodcuts,” published by Princeton Architectural Press in 2012 (available to purchase at the show), he envisions the end of a stack of plywood, mismatched lines creating new patterns, as a tile-like print.

“The way he looked at the world was to say, ‘There’s so much beauty right here,’” his widow said. “We’re all searching for it, but here it is. It’s the tree or the stack of wood we see every single day. Look what it does, what it can give us.”

For inspiration all Nash Gill had to do was to look out the window of the New Hartford, Conn., home he shared with Gina and their son, Forest, now 11 years old. 

Nash Gill had worked in painting and wood and metal sculpture. The cross-section tree prints emerged late in his career.

“When he passed away we photographed every single piece from his studio, and we had over 4,000 pieces,” his widow said. 

Nash Gill’s work has been displayed at The Hotchkiss School, the Westminster School, at a show in Tokyo, Japan. 

Gill said she has been preparing for another opening.  

“It’s fun — well, it’s bittersweet actually. I loved him. I loved coming home every  day to see what he was working on.”

“Reflections: A Show of Work by Bryan Nash Gill” will be on display at the Cornwall Library through March 17. All work is available for purchase.