Numbers and Trees: Tanzania Series 1, Baobab, Tree #9, Iramba is a large-scale triptych composed of a gridded Plexiglas plaque superimposed onto a black-and-white photograph of a baobab tree, shot during a trip to Tanzania in 2023. A portion of the grid’s squares are numbered and colored in purple, blue, red, yellow, and green. While the motif created by the colored squares covers most of the tree underneath, the superimposed layers do not neatly align: proliferating cells of color form a neon halo along the tree’s contours; an offshoot of turquoise and purple squares spurs from the left of the baobab trunk. 

By converting the natural form of the tree into a numbered and color-coded geometry—a human system guided by a rigorous set of self-determined rules and procedures—Gaines interrogates the fraught distinction between nature and culture, seemingly arguing that aesthetic experience is not transcendent but rather rooted in and shaped by culture. The work also challenges the dominance of objectivity in photographic expression. The thick physical space between the photograph and the Plexiglas grid metaphorically stands for the interpretive work performed by the viewer: as Gaines observed, “What you bring to the image, adds to the image.”