Art in Public Places presents the Treefall exhibition at Mandel Public Library bringing together five local artists in a powerful eco-collective showcase

West Palm Beach, Florida – A new wave of creativity is preparing to unfold in the heart of downtown as the City of West Palm Beach’s Art in Public Places program opens its latest exhibition, Treefall, at the Mandel Public Library’s Urban Living Room. The show, which begins Friday, September 19, 2025, is the third major installation to grace the library’s light-filled public art space, better known simply as The Urban.

At its center, Treefall is a collaboration of five women artists — Molly Aubry, Isabel Gouveia, Natalie Hou, Eloise Janssen, and Michelle A. M. Miller — who live and work in the Northwood neighborhood. Together they have formed a collective by the same name, one that finds inspiration in the ecological concept of treefall: the way a fallen tree continues to influence the environment around it long after its collapse. The artists use this metaphor to consider how daily human choices reverberate across both natural and constructed landscapes.

The exhibition brings together sculpture, painting, photography, collage, printmaking, and participatory performance. Visitors will not only view the pieces but, in some cases, interact with them, as the collective emphasizes community engagement and reflection. The five artists, though distinct in their practices, are united by a shared commitment to exploring how art can mirror ecological systems and spark conversations about sustainability, decay, and renewal.

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Among the featured works, Molly Aubry’s Tessellations stand out as a series of sculptures probing the uneasy balance between organic form and digital precision. Isabel Gouveia contributes Untitled – Sunshine III, an image transformed through experimental printmaking into a saturated vision of a constructed landscape, bright yet abstract. Natalie Hou’s Glyphs offers a landscape echoing both prehistoric cave drawings and modern digital forms, weaving together threads of time and technique.

Eloise Janssen presents Entanglement, plastered collage vessels embedded with fragments of discarded materials that push viewers to consider hidden narratives in everyday waste. Meanwhile, Michelle A. M. Miller’s Ouroboros repurposes cast-off objects such as oyster shells, wood scraps, and beeswax into delicate works on handmade paper, challenging the notion of waste by redefining it as opportunity.

The exhibition will run through December 31, 2025, during regular library hours, and the public will also be invited to attend an opening reception on Friday, October 10, 2025. That evening gathering, scheduled from 6:30 to 8 p.m., will coincide with the City Hall Courtyard’s Hispanic Heritage Community Celebration, giving residents and visitors a chance to experience cultural programming across multiple venues.

Beyond the visual art on display, Treefall includes a slate of community-centered programs that invite the public to go deeper. On October 1 and again on December 3, artist Michelle A. M. Miller will lead a Death Café, a facilitated discussion space where participants can share thoughts about mortality in an open, supportive environment. Another program, The Obituary: A Reflective Writing Experience, scheduled for November 15, encourages attendees to confront and reshape their personal narratives through the creative process of obituary writing.

The exhibition is part of a broader effort known as Collection Connection, a joint initiative between the Mandel Public Library and AIPP ArtLife. Through this project, residents are encouraged to explore artworks across the city by using a free “Art Passport,” available on the library’s third and fourth floors. The passports help families, teens, and adults discover and document their visits to public art sites throughout West Palm Beach, building a stronger bond between the community and its cultural assets.

“Treefall is more than just an exhibition,” said Carolina Puente, Public Art Coordinator for the City of West Palm Beach. “It’s an invitation to reflect on how we shape the world around us and how that world, in turn, shapes us.”

The Mandel Public Library’s Urban Living Room has become an important venue for such work, blending the everyday act of visiting a library with the chance to encounter professional art in an accessible and informal setting. By situating the exhibition in a public library, organizers hope to reach a wide audience, from casual visitors checking out books to art enthusiasts seeking new voices.

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For the artists of Treefall, the opportunity offers fertile ground. The collective sees the library not only as a gallery but as a living space where ideas circulate freely, much like seeds carried on the wind. In their vision, fallen trees are not merely signs of loss but reminders of how cycles of decay give rise to growth, a metaphor that resonates with the changing landscapes of both nature and community.

The exhibition is made possible by the City of West Palm Beach’s Art in Public Places program. For more information, including images from the installation, visitors may contact Public Art Coordinator Carolina Puente at [email protected] or (561) 822-1406. Updates and conversation can also be found on social media by following @ArtLifeWPB and @TheCityOfWPB.

With its combination of ambitious artwork, thoughtful programming, and community engagement, Treefall promises to transform a corner of the Mandel Public Library into a site of ecological imagination and human connection through the end of the year.