Girl in a Tree

Stretching almost two metres in height, Ben Sledsens’ Girl in a Tree (2020-2021) immerses the viewer in a lush, serene world reminiscent of a storybook fantasy. In the foreground, a ladder leads our eye to a girl in a pink dress, perched atop a branch of a majestic tree. Holding a red apple in her hand, she glances over her shoulder, as if to meet the gaze of the viewer. Her head and feet are haloed by clouds in the sky behind her—a gesture of surreal harmony. In the background, green meadows and forests stretch towards a mountainous horizon, meeting a vibrant blue sky. Born in Antwerp, Ben Sledsens has risen to prominence since graduating from the city’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts in 2015. He is known for his large-scale figurative paintings that conjure luscious, dreamlike worlds. Often populated by fictitious characters and animals, they weave art-historical traditions with everyday narratives. Painted between 2020 and 2021, the romantic, verdant setting in Girl in a Tree reflects the artist’s desire for his paintings to offer a utopic ‘escape’ from reality, while simultaneously glorifying the beauty of nature and ordinary life.

Sledsens has often referenced his continual fascination with art history, citing Henri Rousseau, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Paul Gauguin, and Henri Matisse as sources of inspiration. The tree-climbing scene in Girl in a Tree forms a dialogue with Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s enigmatic The Peasant and the Nest Robber, painted in 1568. Held in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, the painting illustrates the cautionary proverb: ‘Those who know the nest, know it; those who rob it, possess it.’ Sledsens’ Girl in a Tree suggests a modern take on the Netherlandish fable, forgoing its moral didacticism and offering instead a more open-ended set of interpretations. Like its art-historical precedents, Girl in a Tree enchants the viewer with its vivid palette and rich, pastoral setting, suspended in a timeless realm of childlike imagination.