A work reflecting on the effects of schooling on young people and the artist's own experiences of state school, True Leaf comments on the commonplace violence of these so-called ‘safe spaces’. Lewis says, ‘I wanted the painting to feel like every teenager that was, is, and will still be dying inside, who receives negative attention, goes unnoticed or ignored or singled out for torture, misery and bullying all over the U.K. and the wider world.’

Using da Messina’s portrait of Saint Jerome in his study as a compositional structure, Lewis weaves diverse strands together: Kurt Cobain’s face on the cover of Nirvana’s Unplugged album, sprayed outlines of axes, hammers and knives, and scrawled outlines of schoolchildren’s faces, rendered in stark red and black. The central figure’s face is painted in negative colours, as though it could be anyone’s face; on his left, a small struggling seedling breaks through its potting soil. ‘The title ‘true leaf’ comes from something I’ve been studying at horticulture college when growing plants from seed. Often prematurely mistaken for new growth, cotyledons, the husk of the seed, are still attached to the stem before the ‘true leaf’ displays the real plant's characteristic,’ says Lewis. ‘Only when plants show their true leaf can they then be safely transplanted and hardened off gradually in the sun.’