Short Years, Long Days

a solo exhibition by Tom Hemming

Lewisham Arthouse presents Short Years, Long Days a solo exhibition by Tom Hemming. The exhibition comprises a series of paintings about the artist's home and family, framed within the confines of their living room. 

The works were made to be seen as a single installation and document a four-year period of family life. Working from video footage, the figures appear in motion, fractured and restless, seemingly unaware that they're being observed. The position of the paintings in the gallery alludes to the physical layout of the room, but figures and objects repeat, the time-of-day changes and the scale shifts.

Although in one sense the installation is an intimate and autobiographical account of family life it is also an experiment in painting and portraiture. Layered, fragmented portraits are combined with highly worked still lifes and interiors. The viewer is provided with details that could be interpreted as a key to the portraits or an implied narrative but could equally be misleading. Influenced by the writing style of Roberto Bolano the intention is to leave the interpretation open to the viewer, creating space for different readings and giving specific details without explaining their connection. By painting a room through focusing on details, there is also the question of why one view was chosen over another, what has been left out and what those choices mean to how we read the installation.

Born in Cheltenham in 1983, Tom Hemming grew up in North Somerset before moving to London to study. He graduated from the Byam Shaw School of Art in 2006. Tom is an active member of the Lewisham Arthouse Cooperative and works as a technician at the National Gallery

Private View Friday 06/11/26, 6-9pm

Exhibition Open 6th -15th November 2026, 12-6pm 

(Closed Monday – Tuesday)