A new exhibition, The Power of Trees, will open at Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art this spring. The exhibition showcases the spectacle of trees and celebrates their resonance as a source of artistic inspiration across cultures and generations. The exhibition will feature a variety of works, from painstakingly painted botanical artworks to an innovative video installation which transports visitors to a mystical boreal forest. The exhibition will also illuminate the personal connections between artists and trees and will showcase how depicting nature through different artforms can help us to connect more deeply with the world around us.

The Power of Trees exhibition shows 20 new botanical commissions (in collaboration with the Bedgebury Pinetum Florilegium Society) and artist Eija-Liisa Ahtila‘s eight channel projected installation Horizontal – Vaakasuora alongside with never-seen-before drawings. Spanning six vertical screens, Horizontal – Vaakasuora is a critically-acclaimed cinematic portrait of a 30-metre spruce in the boreal forest of Finland; a tree which Ahtila has known all her life. This high-definition depiction explores how to show the scale, history and complexity of a towering tree in its entirety, whilst simultaneously containing and presenting it through perhaps the most ubiquitous mechanism of modern human existence- the screen. The photo series of Horizontal will also be on display. Alongside the video installation, visitors will also be able to see a selection of Ahtila’s preparatory and parallel board drawings, titled ANTHROPOMORPHIC EXERCISES IN FILM, in which she applies cinematic grammar to a non-human subject, receiving their UK premiere as part of this new exhibition at Kew Gardens.

The Power of Trees at Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art at Kew Gardens from 12 April to 14 September 2025, 10am-5pm. Gallery entry free with Kew Gardens admission. Get more information and book your tickets via Kew Gardens’ website here.

Photo: Nick Ash