Artist’s Juniper: Nature Meets the Avant-garde

Artist’s Juniper: Nature Meets the Avant-garde

At Resort Le Dune in Badesi, an ancient juniper tree lives on in the landscape. Its striking forms inspire contemporary artist Andrea Sanna, who transforms it into a unique art installation paying homage to the history of the avant-garde.

Some guests may have spotted it during their morning run along Via dei Centenari, where juniper trees sink their roots deep into the sand dunes. Others may have paused to admire it from different angles, drawn by the vivid colours enlivening the trunk. For those who have not yet encountered it, near the sports facilities stands a painted juniper tree: a fusion of art and nature that blends seamlessly with the Sardinian landscape.

“I wanted to paint this trunk as a story, a kind of pictorial map of the avant-garde movements,” explains Sardinian artist Andrea Sanna. “The central part represents the beginning of artistic currents at the turn of the 20th century, from which, like branches, the different movements spread out.”

From Juniper Tree to Artwork: a Living Map of the Avant-garde

It all begins among the sand dunes of the Resort & SPA Le Dune in Badesi, where an old, dried juniper tree has been reborn as an artwork. Its robust, evocative forms, with rough bark and bare branches, seemed ready to tell a story. The interpreter is Andrea Sanna, a contemporary painter from Aggius, already engaged—alongside prominent national and international artists and street artists—in enriching the open-air museum AAAperto, which animates the streets of his hometown’s historic centre.

In Badesi, Sanna worked for four days. He began by cleaning and sanding the trunk, then applied a preparatory base before painting. Only five colours were chosen: red, yellow, blue, white, and black. Every surface and every fissure became a visual language, a citation, while the thin upper branches were left untouched, as if suspended in air.

A Map of European Avant-garde Movements

In the lower part of the trunk appear echoes of Klimt, Derain, and references to De Vlaminck. One horizontal stretch of wood becomes the base for a tribute to the European avant-garde: Klee, Kandinsky, and Malevich, followed by Picasso, Miró, Munch, and Mondrian. Dalí’s dreamlike language, together with Dubuffet’s intense colours, conveys energy and expressive force, while two slender vertical branches evoke the elongated figures of Giacometti’s art.

A Journey through American Art

A natural crack in the trunk suggested to the artist a second journey, this time dedicated to American art movements. Here we find references to Jasper Johns, with the American flag, to Georgia O’Keeffe with a bovine skull, and to Warhol’s iconic banana and American minimalism. The upper section, meanwhile, alludes to European conceptual art, with nods to Joseph Beuys, Mario Merz, and other leading exponents of this current.

Hidden Details and the Enigmatic Signature

This art installation is not designed to be viewed from a single angle, but to be discovered from multiple perspectives. From a small side path, for instance, the figure of a large bird emerges: its head occupies the front of the trunk, while its wings spread across two planes.

Every creation bears the author’s mark, yet Andrea Sanna’s signature does not appear in the traditional sense. Instead, the work conceals a secret phrase, encoded with the ancient Caesar cipher. A detail that transforms it into an enigma to be deciphered: an invitation to step into the game and uncover the hidden message.