Giant Redwood Trees of California after Albert Bierstadt

Giant Redwood Trees of California after Albert Bierstadt is an original contemporary artwork by TOMOYA, created as an abstract reinterpretation of the monumental landscape paintings of American artist Albert Bierstadt.

The work takes Bierstadt’s iconic imagery of the giant redwood forests of California as its starting point, transforming the traditional landscape into a contemporary abstract landscape painting.

Created primarily with oil paint and combined with spray paint, the work uses mixed media on canvas to build a dense and expressive surface. Layers of blue, brown, green, gold, yellow, and black evoke the colors of the forest, while thick applications of paint and energetic marks move the image away from traditional realism.

Rather than reproducing Bierstadt’s landscape literally, TOMOYA explores how a landscape can exist as a memory, impression, or emotional experience.

The towering trees, natural light, dense vegetation, and monumental scale of the original landscape are transformed into layers of color, texture, and material. The recognizable landscape gradually dissolves into abstraction, allowing the physical surface of the painting to become part of the subject itself.

By referencing a historic landscape painting while using contemporary techniques and materials, this work creates a dialogue between 19th-century landscape painting and contemporary abstract art.

The result is an expressive interpretation of the California redwood forest that focuses not only on the appearance of nature, but also on its atmosphere, scale, and emotional impact.