Chris Cyprus' dream-like treescape paintings have been twenty years in the making

Lancashire-based artist Chris Cyprus has turned to painting landscapes dominated by trees as a way to get through tough times ever since 2001. And during the lockdown earlier this year, he decided it was time to pick up his paintbrushes again and finish his series called Dream Trees.

Written By: Dom Carter

13 October 2021

Artist Chris Cyprus stands among numerous colourful Dream Trees paintings displayed in his studio, featuring purple, blue and pink tones across large-scale works depicting wooded landscapes.

Currently on display in his studio at Woodend Mill in the Pennine Gallery, Dream Trees is a series of beautiful watercolour and oil treescapes that make striking use of colour, texture and perspective. Painted from the back bedroom of the self-taught artist's house, they depict the wooded areas near his home where Chris would during times of reflection and reconnect with nature.

The captivating, large scale paintings were originally created back in 2001 when Chris had been diagnosed with cancer. Painting the distinctive forms of the trees became a way for him to take his mind off cancer treatments and the emotional stress of that time and channel them into a project instead.

A painted forest scene featuring gnarled bare trees with twisted trunks in shades of blue and purple, surrounding a pool of water reflecting the cool tones of the landscape beyond

Bare trees cast long blue shadows across a snowy landscape in Chris Cyprus' Dream Trees painting, with pale pink and cream tones in the snow and darker tree trunks silhouetted against a twilight sky

Since then, the dream-like paintings of nearby woodlands had remained in a draw undisturbed. That was until earlier this year when lockdowns once again set in and made life stressful once more.

"I felt like the situation with the global pandemic put everything into perspective again," Chris tells Creative Boom. "It was similar to the feelings I had when being treated for cancer... a feeling of helplessness, really. I wanted to get back to nature again and reconnect with my surroundings, as corny as that sounds.

"After finding my first series of watercolours in a drawer hidden away for so many years, I realised the subject matter of treescapes was something that truly inspired me to want to paint in the first place, and I had the longing to pick up the project where I left it.

"I decided to start with some large scale oils of local areas where I would go walking during the lockdowns. I felt a huge sense of calm during these walks, and the trees became like friends, a constant in such a horrible situation."

Abstract watercolour and oil painting of overlapping trees with swirling purple, gold and cream tones from Chris Cyprus' Dream Trees series

Chris Cyprus examines printed copies of his Dream Trees series, including watercolour paintings of trees displayed in an open book on a pink checked surface surrounded by other landscape prints

To accompany the Dream Trees exhibition, Chris has also produced an art book featuring all of the paintings on display. Limited to a run of 100 copies, the book will also feature a hand-printed linocut by Chris on the box lid.

Appropriately, a donation from the sales of the Dream Trees book will go towards Eden Reforestation Projects, a non-profit organisation that aims to reduce extreme poverty and restore healthy forests by employing local people to plant millions of trees.