For decades, Sean Kammerlohr’s life has been orange. It’s his favorite color. For most, this is a trivial fact. A favorite color? That’s a characteristic many of us haven’t contemplated since childhood. For Sean, color is everything. It’s his world. 

Called synesthesia, Sean experiences a perceptual phenomenon where his senses are intertwined and experienced simultaneously. Synesthesia is a spectrum; some people have every sense intertwined. For Sean, it manifests in minute ways. Letters have colors associated with them: C is yellow. R is red. Memories, too, have colors associated with them. He has a Rolodex of memories where he “looks into a pocket” of red, for example, and then recalls a memory. Equations, too, have colors.

“I know that 7 times 8 is 56 because of the colors,” Sean said. “I can see the equation in my head as colors just a fraction of a second before the numbers—I don’t actually need the numbers. I would recognize the yellow as 7 times the green as 8, and know that equals the white and brick colored red as 56.”    

The way I imagine it, orange, as his favorite color, means he’s always wearing orange-tinted glasses and seeing everything through a filter. He’s gone through a couple of colors in his lifetime. Green colored his world in his youth (he theorizes green came first because he was closer to the ground then, with grass constantly at eye level). During his grungey teens, deep burgundy reigned supreme. He doesn’t know when, but at some point, that hazy overlay changed to the rustic orange that has brightened over time since his late 20s.

But this era is coming to an end. Blue is arriving soon, he said with a furrowed brow. He looked off to the side, contemplating deeply. It’s been creeping along for years, but it’s coming. There was a certainty to his words, then, “it comes closer and closer every day.” 

I wondered, privately, if the colors would overlap nicely—orange and blue, when mixed, don’t create the most appealing blends. Yet, Sean didn’t seem anxious about it.

“Color rules my life,” Sean said. “They always have. I can’t think any differently and wouldn’t know how to describe it to anyone else… I’m an artist playing with color,” he said with a laugh. “It makes sense.” 

A raven-man, October 30th baby, metal-head, ‘Frankenstein’ friend, and stark believer in the sameness of every being on Earth, Sean joined the Associated Artists of Winston-Salem, Inc. (AAWS) in 2021 shortly after moving from Topeka, Kansas, to the Triad with his wife, Halee, and pup Shenzi. 

This most recent move was just one added to a long line of countless moves before. A “military brat,” Sean’s father was in the military during both the Vietnam War and Cold War. Born in the Philippines on Clark Air Base, Sean’s family lived short stints in California, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Georgia before settling in Missouri.

“We were always new kids,” Sean said about his brother and himself. “We went to so many different schools.” 

His family was rough around the edges, Sean said. They lived in a mobile home where life was often hard. Nineteen eighty-two was his favorite year, though. An annum representing pure freedom as you’d see in the movies; neighborhood bike gangs rode down the tallest of hills and terrorized neighbors, he remembers. 

I noticed that art didn't come up casually in conversation about his early life. I was surprised. As a full-time artist at his level of talent, I expected a childhood of cherished artistic skills he’d honed over time. 

When I asked if he felt inclined towards pencils and paints as a child, the answer was a little yes, and a little no. Sean suspects that he always had a knack for the creative—most people with synesthesia do, he remarked—but the lack of stability in childhood made art hard to explore. 

Art did find its way sometimes, though. Nearly hidden in a corner of Sean’s studio, two molded masks hang in a corner. Frank (short for Frankenstein) and Mars, he calls them. 

They’re interesting reflections of child Sean. Perhaps a little angry and vulnerable, they look somehow sad and lonely in a malformed way. Still, the masks show hidden talent and promise amongst emotions and authenticity in a way only children can achieve; emotions without the filters we put on ourselves as adults. 

Beyond the masks, when Sean was a little older, he ventured back into the art world by sketching robots, TIE fighters and X-wing Starfighters from Star Wars like his older brother.

“I entered competitions in high school,” Sean said. “Mainly, it was drawings with ink pens, especially BIC pens. I love the way they blended, but it was a lot of hard work and a labor of love. You have to retrace things over and over again because pens are essentially a little stylus.” 

At that time, Sean took art classes with Mr. Gorman at “Cow Pie High,” as the school was known to locals (his graduating class was about 29 people). Sean is still known in the area for being a touch rebellious and raw.

“My brother and I were listening to heavy metal and drawing the album covers. There were a lot of skulls and things like that. We actually ended up on the front page paper because of freedom of speech. ”

A drawing of a three-headed skull with blood and bullet holes by Sean was entered alongside other art pieces from his school into a competition. When all the art came back, he recalled that every piece was displayed in the one hallway of “Cow Pie High” except for Sean’s and his brother’s. His brother’s, too, was labeled “obscene” by featuring a skull with a highway disappearing into it's mouth—aptly titled "Highway To Hell." The Administration had an issue with the brothers' art.

“We went and talked to the Principal, called the paper, and got reporters out there,” Sean said. “We told them how the school was censoring us.” 

A couple of days later, the Kammerlohr brothers graced the front page, art in hand in the schools cafeteria. 

After high school, art largely took a back seat when Sean had a daughter. Even though he was the non-custodial parent, he took labor-intensive jobs, often multiple at a time, to help pay for child support. 

“Even when I wasn’t painting for the longest time,” Sean said. “I was still taking pictures with the intention to paint. It was largely a pipe dream. But in my mind, I always looked at scenes in life and wondered how I would paint them.” 

During the Christmas season, he was often “so broke” over the years that all he managed were watercolor snowmen called Frosty. 

“These Christmas cards were my presents,” Sean said. “I hoped people would be ‘wowed’ that it’s a painting and they would overlook that I hadn’t actually bought them anything. But I liked it, so I just kept doing it, and he evolved over the years.” 

Frosty traveled far in these Christmas cards. Sometimes, Frosty looks up at shooting stars. Another time, Frosty is in Northern Canada searching for the Aurora Borealis. A year later, Frosty strolls through the Autumnal forests of–what I imagine to be–Vermont.

“I wasn’t doing true landscapes,” he noted while we scanned the snowmen. “I didn’t have a studio. I wasn’t sitting down painting. It was simply once a year, I thought, ‘Oh, it’s Christmastime, I should paint a snowman,’ and it only kept me in the game. I never lost anything, and every year I got better. The sharp edge for art never dulled.” 

But how did Sean become the landscape artist that he is now? One with a newly renovated studio, living as a full-time artist with awards under his belt? It started in 2018 when his Aunt Sissy passed away. It was a pivotal moment when art just couldn’t be held down.

“I was driving to my parents' house in Missouri from Kansas to be with family after her death,” Sean said. “I saw this red sunrise on the way there and it dawned on me… this is the first sunrise Sissy hasn’t seen. There’s going to be one sunrise for everyone, but this one is hers. So, I broke out my paints for the first time in about 12 years. It was like the Tin Man getting some oil,” he said. 

The Frosty paintings, and this first painting of his Aunt’s first missed sunset, are almost a whole different artist. It’s incredible, looking at them and then seeing his paintings now. Without any “formal” art education, Sean has perfected various techniques that add up to perfect replications of nature. But this piece of his Aunt’s first missed sunrise… It’s heart-touching with its endearing need to document a thought so heartwrenchingly fundamental. 

From that time in 2018, he blossomed. Looking around his current studio, there are hoards of incredibly detailed landscape paintings featuring tiny strokes of grass perfectly emulated, hundreds of leaves blocking the sun, and twisting vines of dead, Autumnal branches scattered on the ground. “Exaggerated realism,” he calls his style. 

One of his favorite pieces is Mid-Winter Revelry, a large 30” x 40” oil painting featuring a crisp blue sky and stunning cold-season berries.

“I have to paint every single stroke of what I see,” Sean said. “I don’t know how to give a suggestion: it just doesn’t look as full to me. I have to work harder, not smarter… I want you to be able to sit in this dead grass and see that it’s just this collage of branches and vines and grass.” 

His artistic process always starts with a photo, he told me. He has to work from a picture to capture the perfect replication of life at that moment. Once Sean finds a picture, he starts with the background. Slow gradations of color are his favorite part of the painting, and he often features them in the sky. 

Sean then uses a modified grid system and crafts equations to calculate the distance between subjects in the photo, which he then translates to the painting. He’s so keen on accuracy that he has even painted dirt in the bottom layer of early paintings. When he told me this, a hint of  sheepishness showed on his face. Bottom layers like that do matter, I agreed, though. They change the nature of the colors layered on top. Still, I raised my eyebrows. What is this incredible need for truth?

“I’m all about root causes,” he said. “Everything is chemical, everything is cellular, everything can be broken down to the smallest atoms. The stuff that we don’t normally think about, that’s where my mind is going–let’s get as far down the ladder to the root cause.” 

It makes sense, then, why Sean builds his paintings, literally, from the ground up into these pieces of impeccable detail. Most important to Sean, however, is not the accuracy. Instead, it’s the message behind the paintings. He doesn’t get his name, Tree Friend Art, from nowhere. 

Sean wants to change the world.

Studying Communications and Leadership for his Master's program, Sean’s thesis contemplated humans' lack of initiative in adopting environmentally conscious practices. Through research, he found that environmental communication to promote environmentally responsible behaviors has not been widely accepted by people because there is disconnect in society between people and Nature. This thesis promoted him to explore the idea of changing peoples perspectives on Nature through art. 

“A lot of people never think about trees having a personality,” Sean said. “So when I’m personifying them through my art, I hope it breaks open a new can of thought for viewers. ‘Well, I’ve never thought about trees with a personality. What else can I think about differently?’” 

This concept was a conundrum for me. At first, I didn’t see how Sean personified trees in his art. When someone brings up anthropomorphism (making something non-human seem more human), I think of Disney—trees and animals with eyes, eyebrows, noses, and cartoonish faces. Sean is not creating these types of caricatures at all, so how is he personifying trees?

It’s about the stories, he explained. He showed me a painting of three trees side by side. “Sisters,” he remarked, “enjoying a warm February day.” 

When we walked outside his studio, Irene and Evan stood tall and thick as a welcoming committee behind his studio, inviting guests into Sean’s cultivated, wildflower-abundant backyard. Irene and Evan's branches intertwine overhead. “They’re a couple,” he told me when we walked beneath them. 

It clicked for me then: by perfectly replicating the trees and telling their stories, he’s staying true to who the trees are without changing them at all. By caricaturing them with googly eyes and noses, he’d alter their spirits. He’d change the trees into something entirely different. He wouldn’t be changing peoples minds about trees, then, rather, he'd create cartoons.

I felt silly then, thinking the anthropomorphism had to include cartoonish eyes for success. I, too, am someone whose mind needed reframing. 

In the future, Sean hopes to sell enough art that he can start a 501(c) that teaches environmentally conscious practices and mindsets through his art. AAWS has played an important part in this process, Sean said, by helping him find community in a new place, giving him exposure, and simply providing motivation to paint, he said. He’s sold some pieces too, which is helpful, of course. 

Sean’s been in countless shows with us, most often showing with us at the Benton Convention Center. Recently, he was chosen as the All Jurors' Choice award winner for his title wall piece featured in Elemental Forces. He has also shown at the High Point Furniture Market, the Spine Center at Baptist Hospital, and was juried into Artist Spotlight a couple years ago.

“We’re all the same life-force,” Sean said. “We need to care about everyone and everything that lives here. In a local way, I just want people to recycle and think of trees as people and ultimately begin questioning. Once you start, it’s hard to stop.” 

Before I left that day, I took one more look around his studio and garden. His Dad’s old stereo played The Tragically Hip, a Canadian rock band, lowly throughout the whole interview. Guitar riffs and gravelly voices set the soundtrack for Sean’s story while Halloween knick-knacks winked at me from the top shelf of a nearby display. A large collection of rocks and gems sparkled in the low light nearby. Bossk from Star Wars, a bounty hunter from a lagoon far, far, away, stooped grumpily behind his palette. 

There are many things about Sean I can’t quite understand. Synesthesia escapes me. The intense need for the truth and perfect replication is a vexing thought. For me, I’d rather slather some paint down and call it a day. And yet, though I don’t understand the inner workings of his mind, I understand Sean. I understand that, at the end of it all, he’s just like everyone else–yearning to leave the world better than he found it. 

Sean, thank you for painting the trees. Thank you for painting the truth. I hope you achieve everything you’ve set out to. I hope your small ripples make waves. I hope all those saplings in your yard flourish into huge, proud trees. I hope life continues to treat you right.

I hope that emerging Blue, that era of the unknown, is the most rewarding yet. 

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To learn more about Sean, please visit him at his website or Instagram!