Tree and Leaf

Aaron Ford, Ádám Horváth, Alex Katz, Alfie Rouy, Allan Gardner, Bones Tan Jones, Cecily Brown, David Brian Smith, Frank Bowling, Isaac Lythgoe, Kate Bickmore, Luke Silva, Matthew Clifton, Natalia Gonzalez Martin, Shaun McDowell, Sholto Blissett, Sophia Belkin, Thom Trojanowski, Tyra Tingleff

Organised with Hannah Barry Gallery

20 November 2021 — 22 January 2022
Hannah Barry Gallery, London

It was in fairy-stories that I first divined the potency of the words, and the wonder of things, such as stone, and wood, and iron; tree and grass; house and fire; bread and wine.
— J.R.R. Tolkien

This group exhibition takes its title from a little-known short book by J.R.R. Tolkien, first published in 1964. The book contains two works, an essay called “On Fairy-Stories'' and an allegorical short story called “Leaf by Niggle”. The two parts were first written independently — in 1939 and 1945, respectively — and were brought together by shared aesthetic and philosophical virtues relevant to a consideration of landscape’s relationship to art and the creative process. Moreover the essay and the short story spoke to the limits that framed this relationship in Tolkien’s own time, whilst providing the means to explore ways in which to exceed them in our current moment.