Francois Morellet is a self-taught painter who began his artistic career with landscapes, still lifes, and a series of unusual paintings using imagery and technique inspired by Australian bark paintings. In the early 1950s, however, Morellet completely changed his approach, and began creating paintings based on geometry and simple systems such as patterns and grids. In his Geometree series, begun in 1983, he explores the theme of the relationship between science and nature, and adds a new and playful dimension to his art. The obvious pun in the title pokes fun at his earlier geometric paintings and refers to the combination of man-made and natural geometry in works such as this. The artificial (painted) geometry is softened by the presence of tree branches, whose lines are not perfectly straight and whose forms cast shadows in certain lighting. The found objects (branches) help to determine the overall composition. Their shapes are repeated, continued, or complemented in the painted lines, and then the branches are attached to the canvas. At certain distances and from certain angles it is difficult to discern the real lines from the painted ones. The success of the combination challenges the traditional idea that nature and science are antithetical to one another and shows them in a harmony that is both thought-provoking and amusing.