After the beginning of the Lebanese war, Simone Fattal moved to California. She enrolled at the Art Institute of San Francisco. There, “she realized immediately that among all the disciplines taught at the Art Institute ceramics was the one which appealed to her the most” (Etel Adnan, “Simone Fattal, Ceramic Sculptor”, Saradar Collection website, Archive of Texts). Since then, clay sculpture became one of the most iconic aspects of her work. She additionally developed other techniques, including glazed stoneware, which is made of clay that is fired at a higher temperature. The glazing also allows to introduce colors that appears, in the artist’s words, like surprises.  
 
This Tree is composed of two distinct parts, a core and an envelope. The envelope is a green hollow trunk built-in with a base that allows the entire structure to stand. The core is a rugged and irregular blue shape that could evoke an organic – vegetal, animal or human – element. It cannot stand by itself, thus, when it penetrates into the envelope it inhabits it almost entirely, so that only its edge remains visible.  
 
Though trees are reminiscent in Fattal’s sculptures and drawings, this piece bares another complexity, that refers to tree of life and more extensively, to living organisms in general. Its uneven and archaic aspect is fundamentally rooted in Simone Fattal’s interest in ancient civilizations which has been a driving force in her art. This piece was part of Simone Fattal: Finding a Way at Whitechapel Gallery, London, 2021 where the installations of sculptures evoked archeological excavations from Mesopotamia.