For more than 16 years on his free Mondays, Ron Dirven (NL) studied twigs, roots, trunks, blossoms, leaves, more trunks, and trees. Endless trees. He did not often go out into nature, as you would expect from someone so focussed on it, but used his studio to wander among the trees and try to fathom them. He improvises and searches for his own soul and identity in his paintings, but only through trees. They stand firm and strong and move their leaves flexibly in the wind. The metaphorical power of nature is evident in his work: the tree as a metaphor for life.