JULIEN BONET - Lumberjack

Technique: Promptography on Hahnemühle Fine Art paper
Size: 50 x 40 cm
Edition: 3 + 1 AP
Year: 2024-25

Signed, dated and edition numbered by the artist on a separate label.

lumberjack

A tree trunk, raw and unprocessed, encloses a body. The grain of the bark resembles stiffened muscles, the knotholes like eyes. Only the boots reveal that there's a person inside. The figure stands motionless in the forest, a strange fusion of man and nature—neither hunter nor hunted, but a hybrid existence between the two.

Historically, "Lumberjack" refers to the forest masks of European winter customs that have appeared on the outskirts of villages for centuries: figures that personified the forest, invoked fertility, or appeased the forest spirit. In some Alpine regions, such masks appeared as "forest men" or "wood spirits," mediating between deforestation and protection, between exploitation and reverence.

Bonet updates these archetypes for a time in which the forest is no longer just a habitat, but also a resource and a projection surface for ecological crises. Here, the lumberjack is presented not as a hero of progress, but as a symbol of our ambivalent relationship with nature: We harvest to live—and in doing so, destroy the very thing that ensures our survival.

In the context of the Masqueraders series, Lumberjack represents a quiet, archaic force: an image that reminds us of our own roots—literally and figuratively.

Part of the ongoing series Masquerades – contemporary myths between fear, ritual and collective memory.