Berlin-based artist Helene Appel creates images that straddle the threshold between realism, sculpture, and abstraction. Appel paints ordinary materials from everyday life, working in a 1:1 scale.

Appel’s work highlights the sometimes-overlooked beauty of ordinary objects such as the bark of a tree, sand on a seashore, an envelope, the headlight of a car, and a loose fold of fabric. Appel’s closely-observed paintings even explore the aesthetic qualities of discarded vegetable peelings ready to be thrown onto the compost pile, or a kitchen sink full to the brim of murky washing up water. The materials Appel uses, such as oil, watercolour or encaustic, start to resemble the object itself, giving her paintings a physical and three-dimensional presence.

This exhibition features key works from Appel’s career alongside a selection of new paintings. It is also an opportunity to see two works by Appel which were recently acquired for the Williamson’s collection: ‘Sand’ and ‘Dishwater’.