Make Room

Sarah Rees - Das Unheimliche - seen here

I popped along to the opening of Make Room at Milkwood Gallery in Cardiff last night, one in a series of shows in the capital celebrating International Women's Day. Milkwood Gallery, both a lovely shop stocking vintage and contemporary design and a gallery, are doing good things with their space in Roath, including giving artists a residency space in their ongoing Basement Project.

I particularly liked this piece by Cardiff based Sara Rees made as part of a project with The Welsh School of Architectural Glass in Swansea in conjunction with The Leverhulme Trust. Her artist profile for the show states her themes as "...late-capitalism, psychology and the environment...an on-going exploration of the interface between nature and civilisation." Placed on the floor inside an under stairs cupboard the work explores Freud's theme of the uncanny - the un-homely house; the piece is lit from within to reveal a tangle of plant life within its sleek glass form.

Milkwood Gallery

Kathryn Campbell Dodd - Birthday Chair and Poem House

Louise West - Common Birds

I went down to Cardiff last night for the opening of the show I am sharing with textile designer, Louise West. It's at the Milkwood Gallery in Roath. The gallery is a fairly new venture set up by Gail Howard and Helen Gubb (lovely people). I was so pleased with the way they hung the work, it looks fantastic. The gallery is a really great space, part shop, part gallery, part artist project space. The shop is delightful; vintage rubbing shoulders with contemporary design, clothes, housewares, books - a real 'flea market' feel. There are two gallery spaces, and in the basement a space which has been given over to selected artists to make and show work.

The current project by a young graduate named Marius Grainger Not Drowning But Waving was also opened last night, he's an very interesting artist. He works with fabrics, clay and found objects; this show confronts issues of loss and death and the idea of the shrine. Very interesting to see a such young man using very feminine techniques in his practice, if I had not met him I think I would of assumed he was a woman, an older woman actually. That's so heartening - it is a wonderful thing when gender stops being a barrier to materials and techniques.

I'm really pleased to have been asked to show at the gallery and interested to see how the space develops in the future.

Marius Grainger - from Not Drowning, But Waving

Milkwood Gallery

Kathryn Campbell Dodd - Butterfly Charm

I am exhibiting with textile designer and artist Louise West at the Milkwood Gallery in Roath, Cardiff from 4 March - 10 April 2010. I'll be showing my new jewellery pieces alongside some other recent work.

Louise West - Magpie - seen here