LONDON’S GOLDEN SQUARE is an innocuous sort of place. Round the back of Piccadilly Circus but relatively unbothered by tourists, it doesn't have the look of somewhere that will shortly be the scene of something of an event in the art world: one of the largest paintings ever undertaken will be exhibited there to the public. The Tree has no public information message or hidden advert. Approximately half the size of a tennis court — 32ft high and 22ft wide — the work of 25-year-old Adam Ball is just a huge and startlingly beautiful picture of a tree. “It’s taken two and a half years to plan,” explains Ball. “I just want to take what I'm doing in the country, hang it in London and see what reaction I get.”
Westminster Council has never allowed such a thing before and was nervous on safety grounds about allowing a gigantic sail to hang in a public space. Eventually, it agreed. It had to be Golden Square, Ball says, because there arent too many trees, it's big enough to allow people to stand back and, crucially, there was enough room for the painting to be freestanding on a frame, “because if you hang it on a building it’s just a billboard”. Then there was the cost: Ball, who until recendy still lived at home with his parents in rural West Sussex, simply didn't have the money. So he and a friend sent out hundreds of letters asking for help The Times Magazine, centre pages “to anyone who'd be prepared to give me £15,000 for not very much in return”, before securing sponsorship from a City-based art consultancy. Meanwhile, he carried on with his day job: turning photographs of trees into paintings, which sell for between £8,000 and £10,000. “I like how in winter the light behind a tree silhouettes it and bisects the sky,” he explains.
Finally, in January this year, having constructed a special ramp in his parent's barn across which to drape the enormous canvas, he started to paint. He's apprehensive about the reaction and conscious that an unknown artist drawing attention to himself in this way could backfire badly. Oddly, though he says he’s interested in knowing what people’s reactions will be, he will not be spending much time in Golden Square. “What's exciting but scary for me is seeing if I can pull off this artistic challenge,” he maintains. “I don’t have any control over what people say and I'm going to learn a lot from people who may never normally go into an art gallery. Obviously it's nerve-racking, but as an artist you have to be prepared to stand up and be counted.” The Tree will hang in Golden Square, W1, for a month from September 2. Adam Ball’s latest paintings will be exhibited September 2-6 at the Air Gallery, Dover Street, London W'1
