Seven Days: Vermont's Independent Voice

Harald Aksdal

After several decades working as an architect, Harald Aksdal returned to his first love: painting. The desire to document the natural world — especially gnarled and soaring trees — has always been with him. Aksdal vividly remembers seeing a tree through painterly eyes for the first time at the age of 8 or 9. “The need to draw it was so strong I can still see the deep texture of the bark and the seemingly endless crisscrossing of branches and twigs,” he writes. Aksdal now paints full time and is a member of the Vermont Watercolor Society. His soulful images of trees are in a show called “Colors, Lines and Dots” at Jericho’s Emile A. Gruppe Gallery through June 17. Pictured: “Quasimodo.”