From Uprooting to Nature’s Fury: The Inner Landscape of Growth

by Chantell Van Erbé

As spring invites reflection on transformation, I find myself returning not to a single work, but to two: Uprooting (1997) and Nature’s Fury (1998). Though created a year apart, these drawings are closely connected. Together, they form a meditation on disruption, emergence, and the unseen forces that shape our lives.

Uprooting, 1997. Colored pencil on paper, 30 x 20 inches

Completed in November 1997, Uprooting was inspired by a dream about angels. The central sunflower stands tall but restrained, bound by multiple ropes and suspended midair. At the heart of its bloom is a hidden angel, cradled within the center and surrounded by soft, cloud-like forms. This quiet yet potent detail shifts the entire meaning of the image. The sunflower becomes a vessel of spirit, its upward posture a form of surrender rather than freedom. Nearby, a second bloom lifts its head brightly, while another curves downward as if folding into itself. At the bottom left, a fourth sunflower lies uprooted and cast aside, its stem curling across the soil. The roots of the central flower hover, unanchored, as scattered soil floats around them. All of this unfolds against a dark, dreamlike sky, where strange clouds drift in slow motion. The image is both grounded and otherworldly, revealing growth as something suspended between realms: physical and spiritual, pain and grace.

Nature’s Fury, 1998. Colored pencil on paper, 17 x 14 inches

Created a year later, Nature’s Fury brings that inner process into physical space. A sunflower stands upright in front of a shattered clay pot, rooted in the surrounding soil. A hand shovel is firmly embedded in the ground beside the broken vessel, suggesting a recent act of cultivation or disruption. The bloom remains tall and resilient while the pot behind it lies fractured and open. The scene holds tension between care and rupture, between human effort and nature’s will.

Where Uprooting explores spiritual transformation through quiet symbolism, Nature’s Fury reveals a more immediate, earthbound struggle. One turns inward. The other confronts the world head-on. Both revolve around the sunflower, a recurring presence in my work. In one, it becomes a channel for the sacred. In the other, a symbol of survival.

These works came from a formative time in my practice. I had been working with colored pencil seriously for about three years and was learning how to express interior states through symbolic language. I began to trust my materials and let intuition lead the process. Although I now work primarily in mixed media, these drawings remain close to my heart. They mark a moment when my voice began to surface clearly and without hesitation.

Seen side by side, Uprooting and Nature’s Fury feel like two chapters from the same journey. One speaks of surrender. The other speaks of strength. Both are about becoming.

Notably, Uprooting has been part of the permanent collection at the Butler Institute of American Art since 2019.