LUX at Oriel Myrddin Gallery

Donya Coward - Textile Taxidermy (Greyhound) - seen here

I'm very excited that the work for our winter show, LUX at Oriel Myrddin Gallery is starting to arrive! I have been the curator for this show, so it's wonderful to begin seeing the works in the flesh. A box arrived this morning from Donya Coward, her Textile Taxidermy dogs heads are beautiful, humorous  and exquisitely crafted. Sculpted in the style of hunting trophies, they are made with crochet and knitting along with antique and reclaimed fabrics, beads, buttons and oddments. There is a Scottie Dog, a Greyhound, a French Bull Terrier, a British Bulldog and a Pug. We have a few dog lovers amongst the gallery staff (including me!) so they are proving very popular.

We will hang the show next week ready for the opening on Saturday 6 November at 6pm. We also have a one-night-only evening of artists' films, Light Loop showing for the evening; films are from Gareth H Davies, Emma Pearce, Julie Ann Sheridan, Simon Whitehead and Jacob Whittaker.

Gareth Hugh Davies

Gareth Hugh Davies - Clochyrie 2008 - seen here

One of the great things about Oriel Myrddin Gallery is that all the staff are artists too; we are all either practising artists, writers or crafts people or were trained as such. One of our crew, Gareth Hugh Davies is a painter and is currently showing work at St David's Hall Gallery in Cardiff. The show continues until 11 June.

Gareth Hugh Davies - Limen 2010 - seen here

Gareth uses painting to explore the liminal , the difficult to articulate thresholds, the unknowable and mysterious. He says of his own work: "My work is an investigation into the relationship between the aesthetic, cultural and mythological in landscape painting..." and painting is a unmatchable vehicle for this kind of exploration. He quotes Simon Morley on this process in his artists statement: '...a mental state in which this self is brought to the brink of dissolution through confrontation with the powerful experience of unboundedness of no longer being securely sited within a unified self'.

Gareth Hugh Davies - Equinox 2010 - seen here

Alongside this 'spritual' investigation, there is a darkness - menace, even, in Gareth's work. The traditional form of landscape painting provides an anchor which allows it to tread into unstable territory. Twighlight and night scenes make the familiar worrying, glowing orange lights in house windows, bonfires and car headlights become ambiguous points of connection in the indigo of dusk and night time. Welcoming and friendly on the one hand, dangerously alluring on another - we become moths at the flame. Tracks and traces in snowy woodlands lead us...where - to whom, or to what? Gareth had a solo show at Oriel Myrddin Gallery in 2007 entitled Olion, a Welsh word which hints at these tracks, traces and marks both in the content of his work and in the process of painting as a medium.

Blast House 2

Blast House 2, the second in a series of literary events programmed at The Lyric Theatre in Carmarthen took place last Tuesday evening. A nice line-up of poets read during the evening including Menna Elfyn and David Greenslade - my particular favourite was Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch.

Film was provided by Gareth Hugh Davies (my colleague at Oriel Myrddin Gallery). Well Known for his paintings; indigo twilight landscapes and studies, darkly brooding trees, glowing evening windows and street lamps, Gareth's films are a natural progression for his work. Simple short durational films; but through their simplicity they stir and disturb deep feelings. Here is a section from Ostinato - a versatile little blackbird singing in Gareth's garden. My favourite was a short film named Procession 1, passing car headlights cast shadows of the front garden hedge against the front wall of a house, hypnotic, a little sinister and melancholic, really beautiful.

Jazz and experimental music took the stage from Orfeo 5 and Parking Non-Stop with poet Zoe Skaulding.

Blast House

I went to The Lyric Theatre in Carmarthen on Friday evening for the first in a new series of poetry, music and art cabaret events. Congratulations to the 'curator' and organiser of Blast House, poet, Chris Ozzard. The identity of Blast House comes from the short lived literary magazine Blast published in 1914 and 1915 as a mouthpiece for the Vorticist movement and seen as emblematic for the first modern art movement in England.

The cover of the first edition of BLAST, 1914 from the Tate Collection

This is a brave and welcome development for Carmarthen. The evening was a brew of art films, jazz and poetry. I particularly enjoyed orfeo 5 headed up by electro-composer Shaun Blezard, and poet and saxophonist Keith Jafrate they collaborated for this performance with Carmarthenshire musician Susan Matthews.

I'm looking forward to the next event on 30th March which will include Zoë Skoulding, Poetry from Menna Elfyn, David Greenslade, Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch and Alexander Trowbridge-Matthews, films from artist Gareth Hugh Davies and hopefully more from orfeo5.