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Kathryn Campbell Dodd - Three Rings

I've had a very busy few months making and showing work. First of all I was invited by Mission Gallery in Swansea to be their Maker of the Month for September. I made a few new pieces including these wrapped rings.

Kathryn Campbell Dodd and Gemma Copp at Milgi Lounge

In October I showed work with TactileBOSCH at Milgi Lounge in Cardiff as part of Moist: The House that Balthus Lived. I was really pleased with the way my pieces had been curated; everyone's work rubbing shoulders together. Gemma Copp's film was being projected from beneath one of my chairs into a long mirror in one of the rooms which worked really well. During the same week Jacob Whittaker and I showed a piece of our collaborative Absent but not Forgotten work in Milkwood Gallery in Cardiff as part of the Made in Roath Festival 2011.

Absent but not Forgotten at Blinc Digital Arts Festival

It's been a very busy time for Absent but not Forgotten, in October we were commissioned by Blinc Digital Arts Festival to make a piece of work for a stunning Tudor town house owned by CADW, Plas Mawr in Conwy. We were invited to film and record inside the house to create a triptych of films and a series of sound works which were shown in the courtyard of the house during the festival. 

Here are some images from the event.

Absent but not Forgotten - The Seventh Room

Following on the heels on our project in Conwy, we installed our new work The Seventh Room in The Studio at Aberystwyth Arts Centre. The piece was funded by The Arts Council of Wales and included as art of Abertoir Horror Festival, a six day event. We also made a documentary series of interviews about paranormal happenings in Aberystwyth which was shown in The Box in the arts centre at the same time - you can see them here. It was fantastic to have the opportunity of the film festival to really think about the aspects of our project which reference horror film and TV, we found ourselves constantly drawn back to some of the stunning early examples of the genre from the silent era as well as many other influences. I was really excited that Abertoir screened a film that has been very influential for us, Fall of the House of Usher, a 1928 film of the Edgar Allan Poe story directed by Jean Epstein with live piano accompaniment. 

Here are some images of the project and our link to our new catalogue.

Tjibbe Hooghiemstra

Tjibbe Hooghiemstra - Bos met blauw paaltje - seen here

During the recent exhibition at Oriel Myrddin Gallery of painter Roger Cecil we were visited by a couple on holiday from Holland who had specifically sought out the gallery. They loved the show and told us about a number of painters in Holland who reminded them of Cecil's work. My favourite of their recommendations is Tjibbe Hooghiemstra,  a Dutch painter, he has strong links with Ireland, especially Ulster where he has taught at the university and exhibited widely. 

Tjibbe Hooghiemstra - The for Miles and Miles Only Wind I - seen here

This makes a lovely, natural connection with our forthcoming exhibition at Oriel Myrddin Gallery which opens on Friday at 7pm. The Dutch Collection - an exhibition of contemporary Dutch design curated by Pembrokeshire's Freshwest Design.

Tjibbe Hoogheimstra - Maanlicht - seen here

Difference Engine

I went to Ireland last week to visit Wexford Arts Centre, we are hoping to take an exhibition currently showing there for Oriel Myrddin Gallery and I went to have a look and discuss the details. Difference Engine - Manifestation IV is an artist curated collaborative show including artists Gordon Cheung, Mark Cullen, Gillian Lawler, Jessica Foley and Wendy Judge.

They have an interesting space at the arts centre, on the ground floor the gallery is punctuated by the historic pillars of the building with an unusual black floor, upstairs a smaller wooden floored space; calm and classic with large windows, the exhibition was installed in both spaces.

The show has travelled through other venues before coming to its 5th manifestation in Wexford, it has been 'rearticulated' in each location taking into account the different challenges and opportunities each venue offers. The concept uderlying the project is to '...elaborate upon the dual meaning of the term jamming – in one sense it signifies stasis or rupture, and in another, opposite sense, it signifies a kind of fluid and shifting improvisation between players...for each exhibition, the artists, through their works, must rearticulate themselves or risk stasis...'

Gillian Lawler

The show includes sculpture, film, animation and sound work. I particularly liked the paintings of Gillian Lawler, atmospheric, architectural constructions, a little claustrophobic and dystopian, alienating and ultimately impossible. 

Difference Engine manifests in Carmarthen in Spring 2013.

Yr Eisteddfod Genedlaethol Cymru 2011

Bedwyr Williams

The National Eisteddfod was in Wrexham this year and I am really glad we made the journey up from Carmarthen to see it. The general consensus amongst us was that Y Lle Celf was the best we had seen for a few years, there was a real sense of cohesion in the curation. I felt this particular show avoided some of the traps into which it has fallen in previous years, it was considered, fresh and forward facing - unequivocally Welsh but looking outwards to the wider art community.

Bedwyr Williams

The Gold Medal this year went to Caernarvon based Bedwyr Williams with a series of works, some of which were editions of works showing concurrently at Oriel Davies in Newtown. I particularly liked his modified Wellington boots, standing on white plinths and stuffed with straw, they are carved with stylised rural images - like a lino cut. Familiar, nostalgic and daft they encapsulate something particular and contrary about living a contemporary life in a rural community.

Peter Bodenham - What we are at home with

The Gold Medal for Craft and Design was given to Peter Bodenham for his ceramic work What we are at home with, Peter is Head of Ceramics of Coleg Sir Gâr, Carmarthen. Two other craft medals were awarded to London based Cary Davies for her ceramics and Sean Vicary for his animated film Re-told a mythical response to the building of a supermarket in Cardigan. Sean is a little curiously placed in the Craft and Design category, but his working process using built models and stop frame animation is undoubtedly painstakingly 'crafted', so perhaps it makes more sense than one might assume. I wrote to congratulate Carys on her win as we stock her work in our gallery shop at Oriel Myrddin and she told me she bought a pair of hand made clogs at the Eisteddfod to celebrate her win which she calls Clogiau Goffa Wrecsam / the Eisteddfod memorial clogs they've been causing a bit of stir at Brixton tube station apparently!

Antonia Dewhurst - Gimme Shelter

Other work I enjoyed in this years show included a series of Penny Hallas drawings, Antonia Dewhurst's Gimme Shelter series of drawn and constructed huts,  Jonathan Anderson's Coal Dust Mandala's and concrete houses, paintings by Andreas Ruthi and Neale Howells and Roger Lougher's bilingual road signs which discuss 'the sublime'.

Without Words / Heb Eiriau

Within Y Lle Celf, an installation entitled Without Words / Heb Eiriau, featured the photographic work of Geoff Charles a Wrexham press photographer who died in 2002 in his 90's. The work was selected from a collection at The National Library of Wales by Peter Finnemore and Russell Roberts. Specifically re-printed for the show, they are extraordinary images - exhibited without explanatory titles they capture now-forgotten events, situations and people - read more here.

Bedwyr Williams - Nimrod

Bedwyr Williams - Nimrod 2009 - Courtesy Ceri Hand Gallery

Oriel Myrddin Gallery took a trip north last week to visit the Eisteddfod in Wrexham. We stopped in at Oriel Davies in Newtown on the way to see the Bedwyr Williams solo show which includes the installation Nimrod (after which the show is named), a scaled down airport with lit up air strip, control tower, adverts and muzak. Overhead a surreal squadron of craft are coming in to land constructed from skateboard decks and walking sticks.

Throughout the exhibition Williams sharp, observant, neurotic humour is at play and the work is comprehensive and accomplished, every bit worthy of Williams growing international reputation. The show continues until 31 August.

Henry Krokatsis

Henry Krokatsis - Dantalux, 2010 - seen here

I went along to Chapter Arts Centre last week and had a quick look around their new show A Fire in the Master's House is Set, curated by Simon Morrissey. I didn't have time to fully explore on this occasion, but I was immediately struck by two fantastic works by Henry Krokatsis which use found mirrors cut up and rearranged to fit together into one hybridised piece. The way the mirrors are placed serves to fragment the reflection so that a full image can never quite be seen. I didn't know about this artist so I'm intrigued and excited to find out some more.

Meri Wells - The Wakelin Purchase Award

Meri Wells - The Wakelin Purchase Prize winner 2011

This year's recipient of The Wakelin Purchase Award is the mid-Wales sculptor, Meri Wells. The award allows a selection of work by a Wales based artist to be bought for the Glynn Vivian Gallery permanent collection in Swansea. The selector for 2011 was Andrew Green from the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth.

Meri Wells lives and works near Machynlleth and has been quietly making her extraordinary, ceramic, anthropomorphic creatures for many years. I remember seeing a show of her work in The Tabernacle in Machynlleth some while ago which exhibited some of the larger scale pieces she makes, including strange characters from the Mari Lwyd folk tradition.

Meri Wells 

The creatures she makes are uncanny, archetypal and perhaps slightly mournful. They strike a deep chord and their earthy, salt-glazed finishes make them seem to be from the most fundamental part of our psyche. Liminal beings half-in and half-out of the mythical and the imagined. For me her work has a very powerful quality, an otherworldliness that somehow imbues these sculptures with a supernatural presence. I feel very pleased that she has received this recognition for her work and hope to see more in exhibitions and collections in the future.

Meri Wells