A NEW work of public art inspired by one of the pivotal figures in modern art has been grown in Aberdeenshire and planted in France.

In the early 1980s, the German artist Joseph Beuys planted 7,000 oak trees over several years in Kassel, Germany, each with an accompanying basalt stone.

Beuys, who lived from 1921 to 1986, and who visited Scotland with festival impresario Richard Demarco, is regarded as one of the most influential artists of the late 20th century, a political and social activist and educator as well as conceptual artist.

The director of the Huntly-based Deveron Arts, Claudia Zeiske, collected acorns from Beuys’ landmark ecological artwork, 7000 Oaks, in Hassel, Germany three years ago.

From these over 60 saplings were grown, many of which have been used to create The White Wood in north east Scotland.

Now Deveron Arts has marked the 2015 Paris Climate Change conference by planting another of the “Beuys” oaks saplings in a garden in the French capital.

Deverson Arts now hope to plant 'Beuys' saplings in different locations around the world, including the home countries of the many international artists who visit the town.

Ben Macfadyen, an artist who is doing a residency with Deveron Arts to create the story of The White Wood, cycled through Scotland and from London to Paris to the climate change conference to "raise awareness of the huge challenges that climate change pose in the world".

He carried the oak sapling with him all the way and it has now been planted in an historic peach garden in Montreuil.

Ms Zeiske said: "Joseph Beuys was an artist with an ardent interest in politics, in particular those relating to peace and ecology.

"As well as creating a peace wood from the Beuys oaks saplings it seemed the appropriate thing to do to mark this vitally important conference by planting one of them in the city where for the first time the world moved towards a commitment to halt climate change.”

Mr Macfadyen said: "The Murs-à-pêches is an ideal place for the oak sapling.

"As well as being an historic community garden it is also an art centre.

"I think Beuys would have been pleased to see that one of his oaks would become a lasting memorial for the 2015 Climate Change agreement.”

The Beuys oak is now in the Quartier des Murs-à-pêches at 65 Rue Pierre du Montreuil.

Visitors will be able to see it growing when the gardens open to the public each summer.

The White Wood, created by artist Caroline Wendling, is located in Forestry Commission Scotland’s Bin Forest in Aberdeenshire.

It was the culmination of a plan by Deveron Arts to bring to fruition Beuys’s hope of creating an oak wood artwork in Scotland.

In 2012, Ms Zeiske collected and seeded acorns that stem from Beuys's 7,000 oaks project in Kassel.

Sixty of them have germinated in Huntly.

The project is one of many instigated in the town by Deveron Arts.

The body has brought a series of cultural and artistic events to the small town, including the regular artist in residence scheme.

Artists working there leave items for the town, so buildings, shops and public spaces are the gallery walls for 55 specially commissioned works of art, including pieces by Kenny Hunter, Jacqueline Donachie and Dalziel + Scullion.

Deveron Arts coined a motto for the town, 'Room to Roam' with a logo, in the shape of an antler, designed by South African artist Jacques Coetzer.

A song of the same name has been written by Mike Scott of The Waterboys.