The Collector is a series of paintings focusing on one such object: the Lego figure. Gathering and logically classifying objects is an integral part of the process of preservation. The motive to preserve is an intrinsic rebellion against loss and the march of time. Collecting is a way of organising memory, simultaneously creating order and collapsing that order into the confines of a jar, or a wooden frame.

The Collector is a series of paintings focusing on one such object: the Lego figure. Gathering and logically classifying objects is an integral part of the process of preservation. The motive to preserve is an intrinsic rebellion against loss and the march of time. Collecting is a way of organising memory, simultaneously creating order and collapsing that order into the confines of a jar, or a wooden frame.

Tristram's exhibition manifests such themes of collecting as she depicts a deeply personal way of organising and preserving objects. Yet, her choice of object has a unique universal appeal: the ubiquitous Lego figure plays a nostalgic role in the memory and imagination of the viewer, both adult and child alike. In the arrangement of her own Lego collection and her representation of this, Tristram subtly taps into tensions between darkness and light, playfulness and rigour, and humour and solemnity. It is through these tensions that the works manifest the interface between illusion and reality.

Her technique, which she describes as a combination of hyper and pop-realism, draws the viewer into the two-dimensional surface, making it appear tangible, further contributing to her thematic manifestation of play.

The Collector raises questions about the ways in which we organise the present for the future, as a means to preserve the past. In this way, the exhibition is about time: time between childhood and adulthood, and time between the past and present. Tristram's choice of subject matter is a metaphor for the collector's process toward the preservation of experience and preservation of emotion.