The Middle- Tom Ellis at the Wallace Collection

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This September the Wallace Collection presents a series of new site-specific works by British artist Tom Ellis. Ellis’s response to the commission is the result of the artist’s four-year consideration of the museum’s unique and eclectic displays. The exhibition includes works on an ambitious scale representing the range of techniques he employs, comprising sculpture, figurative paintings and furniture hybrids shown in combination.

The exhibition title The Middle is open to multi-layered meanings and responses. It reflects Ellis’s fascination with creating objects which are deliberately unresolved and have an indeterminate position. For example, Ellis’s transformative tables and chairs resonate with the furniture the museum holds in its Boudoir, such as Jean-François Leleu’s Secrétaire and Writing Table which date from the eighteenth century. These pieces start in one form and, through a process of opening up, become something else. The title also reflects the museum’s position between the public and the domestic.