Patrick Bergsma creates highly detailed landscape sculptures that seem to float in space. With most of the sculptures bonsai trees are the foundation of his mysterious and playful tableaux.
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The sculptures of Patrick Bergsma aren’t your childhood’s tree houses. Though they embody the whimsical architecture that a child might dream up, they also feature urban decay; rusted cars, broken down buildings and overgrown houses in disrepair. The trees seem to spring forward, like next-generation dwellings that have survived a nuclear apocalypse.
Bergsma’s sculptures also play with physics; often featuring an inverted house underneath the roots of a large, gnarled tree. The barren branches loom over tiny figures that sit beneath them. In a way, the trees almost seem to depict a life that an urban dweller might hope for: A simpler life in the outdoors, free from worrying about busted pipes or rent or the other responsibilities of caring for a permanent dwelling.
There’s a peacefulness to Bergsma’s work. It asks us to imagine ourselves somewhere else and shows us that, even when we’re watering the lawn, we’re still a part of nature.
Text by Stephanie Chan in Beautiful Decay
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