Columns of Gold

About this piece

Mike Gedj frames a dense stand of bamboo as a rhythm of gold, green, and weathered gray. Moss gathers around the segmented joints, while pale lichen and fine vertical stripes distinguish each stem within the tightly cropped composition.

The story

I was drawn first to the yellow, then to everything that interrupted it. Moving closer, I found green stripes running along the bamboo and moss thickening around the joints. Pale patches broke across the older surfaces, each stem carrying a different pattern. I kept the frame close, leaving the wider grove outside the photograph, so that these small differences could become the whole landscape.