Abigail Ogilvy Gallery is pleased to present Hawthorn, a solo exhibition by Haley Wood that weaves together myth, memory, and the quiet labor of grief. The twelve-part series traces the journey of a symbolic bear moving between dream and waking life, an allegory for healing, self-recognition, and return. Through this narrative, Wood examines how loss reshapes perception and how imagination becomes a space for survival.
Inspired by illuminated manuscripts such as Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, each work unfolds across two distinct yet intertwined planes: the upper register capturing the measured rhythm of daily life, and the lower revealing the bear’s passage through a surreal, fairy-like realm. This duality mirrors the tension between presence and absence, reality and reverie, a quiet dialogue between the outer world and the inner one retreats to when grief becomes too large to hold.
