Portrait of a Lemon Tree by Martin Dimitrov

“This work took me one year to complete. I started when the lemons were green. As I kept painting, the lemons ripened, got larger and weighed down on the branches. At one point, one of the branches became so heavy that it broke down and I had to prop it back up. Later, the lemon tree bloomed, and the lemons started falling to the ground. The branches were becoming lighter and starting to lift back up. At that time, I started tying rocks and sandbags to some branches to keep them in place. When I completed the painting, there were green lemons on the tree - just as when I had started. To me, this painting was an amazing experience filled with emotions of contemplation and meditation, of occasional anxiety that I may not be able to finish it, and of introspection.” – Martin Dimitrov