Bark/Cloth

May 21 – August 9th, 2025

Opening Reception: Wednesday, May 21, 2025, 6-8PM

Download the press release here.

View the exhibition checklist here.

This blanket is a necessity. It keeps me from cracking up. It may be regarded as a spiritual tourniquet. Without it, I’d be nothing, a ship without a rudder.

- Linus Van Pelt.

This summer, Planthouse is pleased to present Bark/Cloth, an outdoor installation of Laurie Lambrecht’s photographs of tree bark on the gallery’s patio. Seven photographs, each measuring 56 x 35 inches, printed on fabric, invite close inspection of the tree’s form, bringing attention to details of nature that often go unnoticed.

Lambrecht’s practice combines fiber and photography to replicate, enhance, and transform natural forms. Her series Bark/Cloth showcases a sensitivity to nature’s patterns, colors, and textures. The individuality and presence of trees are central to Lambrecht’s practice. By photographing bark close-up, she focuses on intricate surface details, highlighting irregularities of lichen, knots, and scars unique to the trees themselves.

When printed on fabric, chemical interactions shift the colors into surreal hues like lime green, lavender, and cornflower blue. This process investigates scale, magnifying the bark’s texture to an exaggerated size. The pieces are fade-resistant, colorfast, and printed with water-based inks.

For Planthouse, Lambrecht introduces the transformed images outside, suspending them against the weathered wood wall on the patio. Lingering in the dense urban cityscape, the pieces invite quiet contemplation. In this setting, the enlarged patterns evoke organic memory and urban contrast. The installation invites a moment of stillness and spirituality, allowing viewers to pause amid the city’s busyness. Lambrecht encourages the viewer to reflect on the natural world by isolating and amplifying the’ overlooked surfaces of trees, reminding us that trees, much like a blanket, provide a source of comfort and care.

Bark/Cloth by Laurie Lambrecht will be on through the summer at Planthouse.

Laurie Lambrecht is a visual artist based in Bridgehampton, NY, working at the intersection of photography and fiber. Her background as a sweater designer informs her acute sensitivity to texture, pattern, and color—qualities that permeate her explorations of trees. Museum collections include the National Gallery of Art, the Center for Creative Photography, and the Parrish Art Museum. She has participated in artist residencies at institutions, including the American Academy in Rome, The Watermill Center, the Rauschenberg Residency, and KH Messen in Norway. Lambrecht has lectured at institutions such as the National Gallery of Art, the Morgan Library, and the Art Institute of Chicago and led bookmaking and weaving workshops at museums and art centers. Recent projects include site-specific outdoor installations at the Madoo Garden Conservancy (2019), the Watermill Center (2021), and the Nassau County Museum of Art (2023).