The Woodland comes to life in Evan Rosen’s exquisite artwork
It took the death of his father and a complete immersion into nature, the forest and woodlands to take Evan Rosens art from the darkness into the sunlight.
Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence
–Paul Simon
Darkness turns to light as the seeds of nature take root
The darkness in Evan Rosen’s art was clearly evident. It emerged from the skulls and knives, the snakes and the dark figures that are hard not to miss in his Instagram feed.
Today, that darkness has given way to light in the form of exquisite, woodland floral art.
A series of flower bouquets combining woodland flowers, dogwood bracts, berries and even emerging skunk cabbage are evidence that his artistic path has taken a dramatic change.
But it took the death of his father and the work of his wife to bring about that change.
A spring woodland bouquet including trillium, dogwood, lilac, dog-tooth violet and, of course, our native bumble bee.
His wife’s life-changing decision to leave a hectic corporate job in New York and take on a new career in the quiet of nature’s woodland, that had a pronounced influence on Evan’s work.
A project to create a series of images of forest bouquets to promote his wife’s Forest Bathing venture was the catalyst behind his new artistic path.
“This project started as a way to market Forest Baths. I’d made the logo and we were both happy with it, but we needed something visually interesting for the newsletter and flyers. I can’t recall exactly how we came up with the first one, but I’m sure we were walking in the woods when it happened.”
Evan Rosen’s woodland floral artwork captures the forest and its inhabitants in perfect detail.
Not only was the series of images for his wife’s work the original impetus for creating the floral work, but Evan is quick to add that it is also “because going forest bathing and hiking with his wife, Fru, was where we found much of the inspiration.”
If you want to learn more about Fru’s forest bathing business, you might enjoy my comprehensive story on Fru’s business, here.
Evan also attributes his change in focus to the loss of his dad to cancer in November of 2020. His death and the enormous influence of his mother, an award-winning gardener in her own right.
“My Mom is a flower maniac. She’s very talented at creating flower arrangements and our house was always full of them. She has grown an incredible variety of flowers (especially roses), and has a small mountain of prize ribbons from the local garden show. Which, shell have you know, she won without the use of fertilizers or pesticides, just compost!
My father’s death led to “a big tonal shift in my work,” he adds.
Evan created a collage portrait of his father which was eventually used as a poster for his memorial.
“He was an avid gardener of fruit trees, and an attorney who specialized in cannabis law. I wanted to create an image of him exalted and enthroned by the plants that he loved and cultivated. It’s the way I wanted to remember him, surrounded by life. I think it’s a critical bridge between my older work and my newer stuff.
A tribute Evan created for his father’s memorial.
“I think before I experienced loss, I was much more drawn toward dark imagery, skulls, etc. After spending a year grieving and experiencing actual darkness, flowers started to be really appealing! We also bought a house and I started growing flowers myself in addition to vegetable gardening.”
Evan’s path is quite extraordinary.
The self-taught artist grew up in California and attended University of California, Santa Cruz where he majored in Community Studies where he studied the theory and practice of activism. In high school and college he became interested in working on and designing web sites.
He eventually made his way to New York (Brooklyn in 2006) for a college internship, but he “liked it so much that I never went back to finish my degree. I continued doing freelance design and eventually transitioned to working desk jobs as a web, then UX (user experience) designer,” he explains.
In 2010 he met his wife through a dating website, and the rest was history.
But, let’s go back to the beginning again.
Evan traces the path back to 2014 in a small apartment in Brooklyn N.Y.
“I started making collage in earnest around 2014, while living in a small apartment in Brooklyn. I was exploring the medium in earnest, falling in love with the process, and didn’t have a particular statement I was trying to make. So a lot of the early things I made were derivative of, or direct homage, to the stuff I loved – weird scifi and dark fantasy, anime and comics and fiction.
Evan’s story certainly has a dark side, but it’s one he doesn’t mind sharing.
He remembers his artwork as a “reflection of my mental environment, which has not always been a friendly place. I was, for the first time, trying to treat my depression, anxiety and ADHD, with therapy, medication and meditation. This was not some program, I was just trying everything that seemed promising.
“It turns out making collage art was a key part of that healing process for me. By sifting through images and recombining them, I was able to let my subconscious process things that I wasn’t able to reckon with directly. So unsurprisingly, there are a lot of monsters,” he explains.
His outlook and creative vision continued to evolve and “in 2019 we left Brooklyn for Peekskill, NY, driven in large part by my wife’s passionate love of nature and my industry (web design) becoming increasingly friendly to remote-work. I started gardening and around the same time – the second half of 2019 – you start to see nature imagery creeping into my work.
That becomes clear in a series of biome environmental images he created that he calls the Islands series.
“I think it was also an expression of eco-anxiety – these tiny biomes floating in different voids symbolized a hopeful outcome for vanishing wild places,” Evan explains.
An example of one of Evan’s floating biodome pieces.
It was about that time that his wife needed artwork for her Forest Bathing business and Evan seemed like the logical choice to create it.
And the woodland floral bouquets were born.
But, it wasn’t quite that simple.
First, his outdoorsy wife, Fru, had to get this indoor recluse out in nature so he could experience what she was planning to dedicate her life doing.
“Well, I spend a LOT more time in the woods now. That’s always been a key part of our relationship, spending time in nature together. And for most of the time we’ve been together, she was always the one who would suggest we do outdoorsy things. And I’d half jokingly say ‘thanks for making sure I go outside sometimes.’ Because collage art is a pretty inherently indoor activity.”
Evan explains how getting outdoors changed his life.
Evan and his wife, Fru, enjoying the forest in New York State near their home.
“Learning the science has also been really eye opening. There are so many profound, and objectively measurable, health benefits to spending time in the woods. One of the most useful for me is the way it helps me regulate my nervous system. After I’ve been out in the woods for maybe 45 minutes or an hour, the sense of calm I feel in my body is tremendous, and lasts well past when we return to civilization.”
But, there was still the matter of creating these exquisite woodland bouquets. Again, that’s where his wife’s extensive knowledge of the woodland came to the rescue.
“I feel the bouquets are very much a collaboration, and never would have happened without her business as a client. They always start with a list of plants that we’re excited about seeing in the month ahead. Typically Fru would write most of that. So, she should get credit for a lot of the knowledge you’re seeing displayed!”
“From there, I’d learn the latin names and go find them on plantillustrations.org, an incredible archive of botanical imagery. Some species have hundreds of illustrations, while others might only have a few. But that site provides 90 per cent of my source material.
“Often I’ll combine elements from several different illustrations. The arranging itself is mostly my solo activity. But then I’ll always work with her to fine tune it, because she also has a great eye, especially for things like color balancing and getting the right mix of simple and complex.”
Evan also admits that it is his wife who does most of the planning.
“I do pretty well with my ADHD, but these take weeks to finish and if it were left up to me they’d all be two months late. She would make sure we start the process the month before which usually was enough time for me to finish a piece during the intended month.”
And so it was that the bouquets were born – one for each month of the year to promote Fru’s Forest Bathing business and, in turn, bring new life and focus to Evan’s art.
“I will definitely keep doing more floral arrangements,” he says. “I’d love to do commissions in this style, creating a custom piece based on the plants that are meaningful to someone.”
Where can you purchase Evan’s art?
Evan and his wife operate an Etsy shop where you can purchase his work as fine art prints, greeting cards and even a calendar displaying all the woodland images. Use this link to visit the Etsy site (or the one above.)
Evan has generously offered a 15 per cent discount to Ferns & Feathers readers by using the code “FERNSANDFLOWERS” at checkout. Evan points out that any order over $35 (which amounts to a calendar and two cards!) and there’s free shipping.
In addition, consider that 50 per cent of the Etsy shop profits are donated to an indigenous people’s arts and culture organization in New York.
“We donate 50 per cent of our profits to The Lenape Center, an arts and culture organization run by and for Lenape, the indigenous people of the Lower Hudson Valley,” explains Evan.
“As a white person, land acknowledgements are a good start, but pretty meaningless if they aren’t backed up with action, Evan explains. “So, we wanted to make sure that this project gave back to the land, by giving back to the people who have stewarded it.”
In their own words: “Since 2009, Lenape Center, based in Manhattan and led by Lenape elders, has created programs, exhibitions, workshops, performances, symposia, land acknowledgment, and ceremonies to continue our Lenape presence. We push back against our erasure and seed the ground with Lenape consciousness for the next generations.”