Statement
My practice is an exploration of my connection with familiar landscapes. The subject of my work is my home terrain of West Wales: the landscape, the coast, the ecology. I am inspired by local colour, plant life, atmosphere, and weather. My childhood was spent happily on small islands, surrounded by swirling tide races and wind-blown seas. My terrestrial habitat is maritime heath and lowland heath. It’s a warm, familiar colour palette, dominated by bracken, heather and gorse.
The starting point for my creative process comes from both my surroundings and my internal world. A sense of place, interleaved with my emotions, memories, and associations. Sketching on location is an important part of my process, sometimes a hasty scribble in my sketchbook suffices. Colours, shapes, textures are hastily noted -more faithful to my feeling of a place than to its actual appearance. In the studio I work with collage, paint, and mark making. I allow space for exploration, for chance developments and abstraction, inviting paint and torn paper to direct the process. The work develops according to its own trajectory, while staying rooted in my experience and feelings of belonging and being at home in the Welsh landscape.
Datganiad
Mae fy ymarfer yn archwiliad o fy nghysylltiad â thirweddau cyfarwydd. Testun fy ngwaith yw fy nhirwedd cartref o Orllewin Cymru: y dirwedd, yr arfordir, yr ecoleg. Rwy'n cael fy ysbrydoli gan lliwiau lleol, planhigion, awyrgylch, a thywydd. Treuliais fy mhlentyndod ar ynysoedd bychain, wedi’u hamgylchynu gan rasys llanw chwyrlïol a moroedd a chwythwyd gan y gwynt. Fy nghynefin yw rhostir arforol a rhostir iseldir. Mae’n balet o liwiau cynnes, cyfarwydd, wedi’i ddominyddu gan redyn, grug ac eithin.
Daw man cychwyn fy mhroses greadigol o fy amgylchfyd o’m cwmpas, a fy myd mewnol. Ymdeimlad o le, yn rhyngddalennog gyda fy emosiynau, atgofion, a chysylltiadau. Mae arlunio ar leoliad yn rhan bwysig o fy mhroses, weithiau mae sgribl brysiog yn fy llyfr braslunio yn ddigon. Mae lliwiau, siapiau, gweadau yn cael eu nodi ar frys - yn fwy ffyddlon i'm teimlad o le nag i'w olwg wirioneddol. Yn y stiwdio dwi'n gweithio gyda collage, paent, a marciau. Rwy'n caniatáu lle i archwilio, ar gyfer datblygiadau ar hap a thynnu, gan wahodd paent a phapur i gyfarwyddo'r broses. Mae’r gwaith yn datblygu yn ôl ei drywydd ei hun, tra’n aros wedi’i wreiddio yn fy mhrofiad a’m teimladau o berthyn a chartref yn nhirwedd Cymru.
Education:
BSc Ecology and conservation, University of St Andrews 2010
MA Fine Art, Aberystwyth School of Art 2021
Group Exhibitions:
Aberystwyth Illustrators ‘The Mabinogion’, Aberystwyth Arts Centre 2015
Aberystwyth Illustrators, ‘The Fourth Branch’ Aberystwyth Arts Centre 2016
Aberystwyth School of Art Postgraduate Show 2021
Mid Wales Arts Centre Winter Open 2021
Royal Cambrian Academy Open Exhibition 2022
Royal Cambrian Academy Open Exhibition 2023