BECKY YAZDAN & ELISA LENDVAY
UNDER THE APPLE TREE

Giampietro Gallery
1064 Chapel Street, New Haven, CT
September 9, 2017 - October 7, 2017

This particular body of work focuses on transitions and change and the violence and inevitable resistance that come along with it. In order for the caterpillar to turn into the butterfly it must digest itself with its own enzymes. For one to move forward, things must be left behind -- how do you decide what stays and what goes? Do you keep the baby or does it get thrown out with the bath water? The Apple Tree can be seen as a sanctuary or a shelter, or it can be seen as beautiful temptation, offering poisonous fruit. In Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree, the apple tree exists to make the boy happy, offering fruit to eat, branches to swing on and lumber to build a house. The boy returns as a tired old man and the tree, having sacrificed everything, has nothing left but a stump for him to sit on.

“And the tree was happy…but not really.”