Vivienne Roberts Projects presents A Winter’s Tale, an exhibition of small-scale works by over 50 artists, bringing together painting, drawing, printmaking, collage, sculpture and mixed media.
At a time when images are so often encountered at speed and at a distance, these works ask us to come closer. Their intimate scale concentrates the gaze, allowing details, gestures and shifts of colour to become newly perceptible. A small work does not necessarily offer a smaller experience; its physical dimensions can instead create a more sustained and intimate encounter. The title is taken from Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, a play concerned with time, loss, transformation, revelation and the unexpected. It provides a loose frame for an exhibition in which contemplation and humour, silence and surprise can exist alongside one another. Two passages from the play accompany the exhibition: The Silence often of pure innocence Persuades when speaking fails and, in one of Shakespeare’s most famously abrupt stage directions: Exit, pursued by a bear. Together, they suggest something of the exhibition’s range.