20x30cm (frame size)
Trees bring people together across cultures and faiths. If trees have any downside, it is only their absence.
For thousands of years, people around the world have brought greenery indoors in the darkest months, as a sign of life, renewal and protection.
Visiting
The exhibition opens on Tuesday 24 November and runs until Tuesday 8 December at the Schwartzman Gallery, the contemporary art space at The Margate School, 31–33 High Street, Margate CT9 1DX.
The gallery is named in honour of the school's patron, Arnold Schwartzman OBE, the renowned graphic designer, author and Oscar-winning filmmaker (Genocide, 1982), who grew up in Margate.
Batsford Gallery, 266 Hackney Road, London, E2 7SJ, 11-20 December 2026.
Opening hours: Schwartzman Gallery, Tuesday to Saturday, 11am–5pm
The Batsford Gallery Friday - Sunday, 10 am- 5pm
Admission: Free
Books
Two books will be on sale at both venues: Forests, Woods and Groves (Batsford) by Philippa Beale, an artist with a lifelong love of the natural world, and When Art Meets Ecology by George Peterken OBE. The beautiful catalogue about Staverton Park in Suffolk by Tim Craven, the Founder of the Arborealists will also be for sale.
Why We Love Trees
Philippa Beale's thinking about why we love trees grew from her conversations with Professor Geraldine Finlayson, with whom she worked while curating the exhibition Traces of Humanity in Gibraltar earlier this year , leading to the belief we have an innate urge to keep searching for Eden.
Geraldine Finlayson and her husband, Professor Clive Finlayson, have been leading figures in the excavation and interpretation of the Gorham's Cave Complex on the south-eastern side of the Rock of Gibraltar, where Neanderthals lived tens of thousands of years ago. The site was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2016 for its extraordinary testimony to Neanderthal life.
Their work has transformed our understanding of the Neanderthals, whose story is part of our own and lives on in all of us. Popular culture has often portrayed prehistoric life as brutal and primitive, but the evidence paints a far richer picture. There was danger, as there always is, yet in many ways their lives were like ours: families walking together, rewarded with breathtaking views of trees of every kind.
A New Collaboration
For the first time, Arash Shahnavaz and his team at Kei London, the visual art agency, join the exhibiting artists. Philippa invited them to take part in the project, in keeping with Ash's belief that "every artist has a unique story to tell.”
The Artists
- Georgina Allen
- Rosalind Archer
- Robert Amesbury Brooks
- Suzanna Baker
- Philippa Beale
- John Blandy
- Day Bowman
- Tim Craven
- Frank Creber
- Margy Creber
- Louisa Crispin
- Annabel Cullen
- Alex Egan
- Ferha Farooqui
- Laura Gompertz
- Julie Held
- Charlie Kirkham
- Claire Leach
- Natasha Lien
- Dawn Limbert
- Anna Maconochie
- Seema Manchanda
- Sarah Medway
- Hilary Rosen
- Angela Rumble
- Tom Shipman
- Maria Storey
- Sandra Wroe
