LEEDS.- British artist Becky Beasley explores relationships between photography and objects, the body and literature. The title of the exhibition is taken from a short story by Jewish American writer Bernard Malamud (1914-1986). A minimal tale of the ambiguities of everyday human relations, of things unsaid or unsayable, the story opens onto concerns that lie at the heart of Beasley’s practice.

The rhythms and forms of daily life and its cycles are also a source of inspiration for the new work as varieties of cucumbers proliferate throughout the exhibition; grown from seed by the artist, they introduce vitality, growth, reproduction and acts of tending and nurturing. The exhibition was inspired not only by her own life and family, but also by two canonical works, one literary and the other visual; Laurence Sterne’s, Tristram Shandy, and Marcel Duchamp’s last work, Étant donnés.

These new works are accompanied by two displays of work by other artists selected by Beasley. The first is a series of photographs of vegetables by Charles Jones, a Victorian gardener and self-taught photographer. The second display entitled I Fall to Pieces is work from the Leeds Collection selected by the artist that reflects Beasley’s interest in still life and the domestic.

Spring Rain is a partnership with Spike Island , Bristol .

Becky Beasley (1975) lives and works in St. Leonards-on-Sea. She graduated with an MFA from the Royal College of Art in 2002, and recent solo exhibitions include The Outside at Tate Britain (2012) and Francesca Minini Gallery, Milan (2011) and Setting at Laura Bartlett Gallery, London (2012). Group exhibitions include Je Suis Un Autre at Kunstverein Freiburg (2012), The Imaginary Museum at Kunstverein Munich (2012) and Apropos of the Kissing of the Hand: A Celebration of the Writer Robert Walser in Newcastle upon Tyne (2012).

The exhibition is on view at Leeds Art Gallery, from 12 July – 22 September 2013.

Beasley is represented by Laura Bartlett Gallery in London and Francesca Minini in Milan .