Tom Hammick: My Sister's Garden

Entitled ‘My Sister’s Garden’, the exhibition is named for Hammick’s sister ‘Koodge', who is a passionate gardener. An extended period spent staying with his sister saw Hammick in the garden drawing daily. This helped the artist reflect on the strong connection between gardens and wellbeing, as recently seen during the lockdowns, when access to outside space – even small balconies – became crucial. This experience inspired a new body of work which, says Hammick, ‘celebrates the quiet, beautiful and slow aspects of life and reminds us that we do have a heaven on earth, if only we’d look after it.’

The exhibition includes five large-scale paintings, four large woodcuts, three etchings and a series of over fifteen pen and ink drawings – the first time his drawings have been shown with his paintings and prints. As Hammick comments: ‘When you draw something, you’re immediately making decisions about what information to put on the page. It helps you push and pull the space, almost like you’re weaving, and brands a memory of the moment onto your brain. I draw every day and record the world around me in little notebooks. I don’t usually show them but use them instead as aide memoire back in the studio.’ He has chosen to show his drawings here because they are key to the specificity of this new work; they give a sense of how he processed nature into his art and are key to these paintings and prints.