SMALL WORLDS – TOM DE FRESTON

No 20 Arts is delighted to present SMALL WORLDS, the inaugural exhibition of Tom de Freston’s drawings. Long an admirer of Maurice Sendak, Jon Klassen, and Leonora Carrington, and having built a career around the construction of multimedia worlds, it is little wonder that de Freston has turned his hand to illustration in the past five years. From jointly creating stories around miraculous animals with his wife, novelist Kiran Millwood Hargrave, to being selected to make work for the first illustrated edition of David Almond’s iconic Skellig, he has brought his full range of process to paper. Monoprinting, collaging, maquettes, and painting combined with interplays of scale and texture give each finished work depth and intrigue. His fierce belief in an image’s ability to communicate complex narrative is on full display here, made no less complex by the size, simplicity of line, and colour palette.