London Planes

The photogravure triptych London Planes depicts the structure of tree branches against the sky in an almost abstract manner. The lines of the branches and the few dots of the seed balls provide structure to the images and give them a highly graphic appeal. Penalva states: ‘The London Plane tree interested me for two reasons: one, that the name of the city, London, has become associated with it; the other, that the hybridization that produced the London Plane crossed the Platanus orientalis and Platanus occidentalis. While the London Plane is common and recognizable as a European tree, its branches have something of an Eastern calligraphic movement that somehow recalls its Oriental origins.’