Oh I Do Like To Be Among The Trees @ Hayward Gallery

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrjzLLPDITc

I wanted to look at everything at once! After not being sure what to expect, I wasn't expecting such a visually arresting exhibition or such a variety...

There's a very tactile, almost touchable photo of a Yew tree in a churchyard; dead trees; fire scorched trees; trees growing underground and fighting to flourish in urban places, abandoned spaces; trees as cultural and social comment; a disturbing bright and sunny picture of a Lynching Tree by Steve McQueen which made me stop and think for a while...

And those 3D trees; trees as sculpture; trees made out of other trees; a bamboo forest of trees, and a tree painting as only Van Gogh could have done if all he'd had was black paint to hand. Black Square forces you to move about and stop and stare to spot the trees carved into the textured paint layers. Not to mention the tree made thin slices of tree, stuck back together with precision, beautifully, to create an artificial tree trunk or log...

Trees of memory - Columbian Amazon reproduced much later, from memory.

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Urban trees fighting back....

Installation trees showing the seasons... and the movement - was the yellow thing flying about a bird, a butterfly, a leaf?

Trees Damian Hurst style

I loved looking through this yellow lit box of trees, partly cos you could see a brightly lit tree photo ahead (produced camera obscura style and inviting you in and yet horrific, because this was the Lynching Tree by Steve McQueen), and it was so engaging an object in itself.

Tree paintings - loved the Pollock style slashing of one painting showing homes behind snowy branches and hidden, forcing you to look really closely to spot the roof tops. Also this one, showing how we use trees socially... The same artist had produced the heart of the forest, which looked like nothing very much, until you stepped back, then suddenly layers of depth sprang into life and it felt like something you could walk into.

Warning - this exhibition will make you want to lie on the floor and look up at tree photos!