LIGHTNING STRIKE SERIES
The Lightning Strike Series is made up of metal castings of fragments that have been blown from trees struck by lighting. The "strikes" document the moment when the electrical charge between the earth and its atmosphere equalizes and the tree acts as a conduit between the land and sky.
"The relationship of earth and sky is fundamental in much of Ruppert’s work, and he explores it in both his photographs and his “Lightning Strike” series. Inspired by a shattered piece of pine he found while walking in the woods, the latter works on a theme familiar in art as well as in folklore—the tree as a conduit between the two realms. In his bronze or iron castings of wood splintered by lightning, the strength and structure of the growing tree are faithfully reproduced in the details of its wood grain. The violent power of the lightning is also plain to see, particularly in the gleam of a polished edge in “Bronze Wall Strike.” Curiously, the effect is a simultaneous evocation of the tree, the lightning and the devastating instant of impact." Mary McCoy
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