Clara Hales
Visual Artist and Illustrator
2025-2025 Local Artist in Residence
Embodied Viewpoints
How wonderful it is that one can see an image and understand things in their soul that can’t be enunciated with speech! I aim to create art where emotion and clarity coexist. Artist and author Suzanne Brooker said that “if every kind of landscape – from the Grand Canyon to Mount Fuji – has already been painted, then what makes a landscape interesting? The answer is you. You are the new and novel ingredient: how you see and respond to a scene, the way you translate and interpret the felt sensation of nature into a two-dimensional painted surface.” With every painting, I asked myself – what am I sharing? What aspect of Pando am I trying to communicate with my audience? What do I have to say about this particular spot and how have I, as the new and novel ingredient, changed the recipe, so to speak?
One way my work answers this question visually is through composition and framing. Rather than attempting to depict Pando in its entirety,
“I repeatedly chose cropped, embodied viewpoints – looking up into the canopy, standing at the edge of a path, or peering through trees toward the lake. These compositional decisions reflect how it is encountered in lived experience…”
I simplify forms into larger value relationships, allowing the emotional tone of a scene to emerge without sacrificing clarity. The viewer is guided through a structured experience of light, atmosphere, and space. Each painting isolates a distinct perceptual condition – light, weather, or season – creating a collection of moments that together suggest the passage of time without explicitly narrating it.
Since Pando exists on a timescale far beyond human perception, my role is not only interpretation, but selection and framing of a pre-existing system. What’s so interesting about Pando is the contrast and tension between fleeting observation and massive, slow ecological continuity. This contrast is my visual thesis. Pando has persisted for thousands of years. It has survived climate variation, ecological pressure, and natural cycles of disturbance. Throughout its lifetime, humanity has fought wars that changed the course of history, made groundbreaking discoveries, and developed technology at a once unimaginable scale. Through it all Pando has stood. Pando, the largest living organism on Earth, is a testament of undying resilience and timeless wisdom of which I am a witness.
I have had the incredible privilege of living only an hour away from Pando, and so days where I got to go experience the tree were frequent. Throughout the year, I often brought my journal, watercolors, and camera, and took a day to gather inspiration from the Tree. I’d sketch, write down things I noticed, paint plein air, but mostly I tried to collect reference material that I could later work on and paint in my studio at home. Throughout the residency, those days in Pando began to feel more and more like home. The peace and quiet was something I often needed in my busy life, and Pando became a solace I looked forward to experiencing.
My paintings capture finite moments inside something that outlives human experience. Although Pando exists as a vast interconnected organism, my paintings rarely depict it as a whole. Instead, I focus on fragments – clusters of trunks, partial views, obscured distances – mirroring the way its full scale remains largely imperceptible from within. In the series of works I have created of Pando, I take you on a walk with me through the aspens, under the canopies and among the wildflowers. My paintings are impressions of a day in Pando – not just the beautiful sights, but the calmness and serenity of the experience and the wonder and awe we feel when slowing down to notice the world around us. Impressionist Alfred Sisely once said, “Each picture shows a spot with which the artist has fallen in love.”
“…Looking back now at my work and the year I spent with Pando, I can see the progression of a love story. Over time, what began as observation became attachment. I fell in love with the way light filters through the branches and the leaves. I fell in love with the sights and sounds of a place uninterrupted by the noise and anxieties of the world. I fell in love with the way it felt to look out between the trees over the hills and see the lake. Rather than attempts to define the organism, my paintings strive to humbly witness it – moment by moment, fragment by fragment – holding briefly what has endured for thousands of years.”
Artist Statement
The painting that made me fall in love with art was I Dream of Strawberry Sulfur by Aaron M. Bushnell. It’s an oil painting depicting a curving road that leads off into the distance, with a complex of industrial, plain, utilitarian buildings on either side. The sky stretches wide and open, painted in soft, fading shades of peach, pink, and pale orange near the horizon. It captures that moment just after sunset – not quite night yet, but on the edge of dusk, as the street lights begin to turn on and the warmth of the day is slipping away. I was automatically captivated by the scene. It was weird to me how a cityscape, much like the ones I see every day, inspired me so much, but then it hit me. The extraordinary thing about it was the fact that I see things like it every day. Immediately, I was reminded of the many evening drives on I-15 I spent in the backseat driving back home from Salt Lake City, admiring the sky. It wasn’t just a sunset and a road. It was finding beauty in the everyday and ordinary. This person I’ve never met made me feel understood in a way no one else had. I had always enjoyed drawing; I had always admired the famous works of artists that preceded me, and already my closet was brimming with filled-up sketchbooks. But that’s when I think I really got it. It was a really pretty picture, but art isn’t necessarily just about making pretty pictures. Art is about us. It’s one soul saying, “This is how I feel,” and another responding, “Really?! I thought I was the only one.” Art is how we explain to one another what it’s like to be alive.
That’s why I jumped on the opportunity to work with Friends of Pando as soon as I got the chance. Because Pando has a sort of quiet confidence and regality to it that can’t be effectively described through words. It’s a marvel that we look upon with awe and reverence. We can’t really wrap our heads around the beauty of life and the incredible wonders like Pando that nature has given us. That’s what I want to showcase with my work: how it feels to be in that moment where the world feels so very big and we feel so very small. To bask in the beauty of life and contemplate our place in it all. I’m interested in Pando’s role in the ecosystem as well – how it was foundational for so much of the Fishlake scene we see today.
Vincent van Gogh said, “find things beautiful as much as you can; most people find too little beautiful.” My work in Pando furthers my overall artistic goal to put nature on display for people to contemplate, appreciate, and “find beautiful.”
So why Pando? Because life is beautiful and our world is incredible. And I want to share that with as many people as I can.
Bio
Clara Hales is a visual artist based in central Utah who works primarily in watercolor, oil, and digital painting. She is an accomplished young artist with a growing portfolio of award-winning work, including displays at the State Capitol, Mestizo At Gallery, and regional shows, where she’s been recognized by state leaders for impactful portrait work. In addition to her gallery and exhibition work, Clara sells original watercolor paintings and prints through her Etsy shop, where her floral illustrations have become favorites among customers and offered opportunities to connect. As a designer and illustrator, she has also collaborated with nonprofit organizations to create digital artwork that communicates mission-driven values with sincerity and significance. Her art blends expressive brushwork with thoughtful composition, creating a unique style where emotion and clarity coexist. Clara’s work often draws from the natural world, incorporating organic forms, subtle textures, and quiet symbolism to reflect on themes of authenticity, connection, and a humble admiration for the beauty of everyday life. Alongside her love for visual art, Clara also enjoys expressing her creativity through music and drama. She sees art as a way of paying attention–a gentle practice of honoring stillness, memory, and the layers of meaning within ordinary moments. Her hope is that through art we can shift our perspective on the things we encounter every day and choose to live brighter and fuller lives.
Friends of Pando is dedicated and working to educate the public, support research and preservation efforts and inspire stewardship of Pando, the world’s largest tree.
Friends of Pando is a proud partner of Pando’s public land stewards, Fishlake National Forest of the U.S. Forest Service, Department of Agriculture. Learn more about our partnership.
Friends of Pando and its partners are equal opportunity employers.
Just $18 a month supports work to ensure Pando can be enjoyed for generations to come. Make a one-time or, recurring tax deductible donation today.
Friends of Pando
PO Box 12
Richfield, UT, 84701
Phone: 435-633-1893
IRS EIN: 87-3958681
