The Worry Tree - Daisy Parris

In Daisy Parris’ first solo exhibition at Ruttkowski;68 in Paris, The Worry Tree, the artist confronts one of the great issues of our time: mental health. The exhibition’s title is borrowed from a behavioral therapy concept: the Worry Tree is designed to help people visualize their own fears.

Parris collates her own fears in her art. Born in Kent in 1993, the artist translates her anxieties into painting, drawing, and more recently collage. The adopted Londoner’s works have some moments that are tender and quiet, but others that are intense and frightening, running wild and yet contained within the framework she defines—the pictorial space. The application of paint is at times energetic, fraught, and uncontrolled, but at other times it is as controlled as it is stringent. The long, colorful lines that appear in most of her works and extend across their width can be interpreted as scales measuring the intensity of fear or worry.