“Flowers from an unknown tree
Filled me with their fragrance”
Taking a haiku by Bashō (1644 - 1694) as the idea that groups the works, the exhibition centres on plants and trees from a South London residential square.
Patricia Swannell's Landmark Series is a meditation on time as reflected in the trees that we encounter every day. Trees, the lungs of the earth, are potent signifiers. Rooted in the earth while reaching to the sky, they connect us to both past and future human generations.
Swannell's installation portrays all the trees in Cleaver Square, surrounding the viewer with a series of drawings matching the current profile and circumference of each tree in the square. At the centre of each drawing is a seed or cutting from that tree that represents both the starting point of the tree and its future.
Swannell's delicate graphite drawings portray with subtlety the passage of time with the repetition of each tree's characteristics - common name, Latin name, location and the date - echoing the endless repetition of seasons through time.
Jude Tucker's graceful sculptures and carvings in stone depict a series of common flowers, trees and seeds. The ephemeral delicacy of her subject is underlined by its translation into an immutable form. Time is halted - a moment preserved - in the sensitively rendered works.
Using a variety of different stones, Jude Tucker presents a series of sometimes intricate works which celebrate natural beauty and form.