As part of this year's Peckham Festival, Benjamin Rice presented Wild Cherry, his series of 3m wide photographs, at ECAD Gallery on Consort Road, Peckham.
Rice was smitten the moment he saw this Wild Cherry tree on Peckham Rye, “It was everything that I had been searching for." He returned to photograph it again many times as it gradually revealed subtle nuances of character with each passing day.
Rice says "It has personality - defiance above all. It stands proudly alone, unlike the huddled trees behind. It may have its flaws but is not afraid to flaunt them.”
"In the spring it entices with pink-white blossom; during the summer it is draped in gradually darkening shades of green. As the languid days of November near, cloaking itself in blazing reds, golds, and burned orange; and in the monochromatic days of winter when its leaves have fallen, stripped bare, exposed to the wind and the rain, it is still a beacon of beauty."
The Peckham Peculiar wrote about the Festival in their September issue.