A Winter's Tale: The winter group show

MELISSA ALLEY, PAT ANDREA, LAURA BARNARD, LEWIS BAXTER, SIMON BURTON, SEAN COATES, OLIVER DORRELL, JUSTINE FORMENTELLI, NICK FOX, ARCHIE FRANKS, ANDREW GRAVES, CRISTINA RUIZ GUIŇAZÚ, SHARON HALL, ANNABELLE d'HUART, ANDREW HEWISH, PHILL HOPKINS, DIANE HOWSE, XINGXIN HU, MARIE HUGO, OLIVIA IRVINE, LOUISE  JANIN, PHIL KING, SHARON LEAHY-CLARK, JO LEWIS, STEPHEN  LEWIS, LOUISA LONGSTAFF SCALES, HANNAH LUXTON, ALICE MACDONALD, ALICE MACSWEENEY, ROSEMARY MCGOLDRICK, TAHIRA MANDARINO, REBECCA MEANLEY, RACHEL MERCER, MALI MORRIS RA, PAUL NEWMAN, LAURENCE NOGA, MARY NORDEN, PEN REID, JON RIDGE, FIONA G. ROBERTS, SARA LEE ROBERTS, MARIE-THÉRÈSE ROSS, ONDREJ RYPÁČEK, SABRINA SHAH, STEVE SHEASBY, ELAINE SPIERS, OLIVIA STREETON, RUTH HELEN SMITH, EUGENIE VRONSKAYA, HENRY WARD, MARK WRIGHT

A Winter’s Tale brings together a selection of small-scale works that invite a particular kind of looking. At a time when images are so often encountered at speed and at a distance, these works ask us to come closer. Their scale alters the relationship between viewer and artwork, creating a sense of intimacy in which details, gestures and shifts of colour can become newly perceptible. What might appear modest in size can therefore possess an extraordinary intensity of presence.

The exhibition explores how scale affects attention, perception and intimacy. A small work does not necessarily offer a smaller experience. On the contrary, its physical dimensions can concentrate the gaze, drawing the viewer into a more sustained and attentive encounter. Proximity becomes part of the act of looking: we lean in, notice the particular, and allow the work to unfold gradually. In this sense, scale becomes not simply a question of measurement, but a way of thinking about how an artwork occupies space and how we, in turn, occupy the space before it.

The title is taken from Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, a play in which time, loss, transformation, revelation and the passage between the real and the improbable are held together with remarkable freedom. Here, the title is not intended to suggest an illustration of the play, nor to impose a single narrative upon the works. Rather, it provides a loose and suggestive frame: a point of departure for thinking about perception, change, memory and the unexpected.

Shakespeare’s world is also one in which seriousness and humour are never far apart. The apparently impossible can sit beside the deeply human, while moments of silence may carry as much weight as speech. This spirit seems particularly apt for an exhibition of small works, where intensity can emerge through economy, and where the quietest image may unexpectedly command our attention.

Two passages from The Winter’s Tale will accompany the exhibition. The first, spoken by Paulina, suggests the power of what is not said:

The Silence often of pure innocence

Persuades when speaking fails

The second is one of Shakespeare’s most famous stage directions, abruptly puncturing the gravity of the play with an image of almost surreal comedy:

Exit, persued by a bear.

Together, the two quotations establish something of the exhibition’s range: silence and interruption, intimacy and surprise, contemplation and humour. A Winter’s Tale is ultimately an invitation to look closely, to give small things time, and to remain open to what may emerge when we do.