warmth, light
(two video pieces, to be shown together. with sound.)
Collecting candle footage
p.s. – from now on sunday will be my designated blog day! (as I’ve been so useless at keeping it up to date – oops)
an update
It’s been about two months since I moved back to life in Edinburgh. Trying to maintain some level of productive creativity during this time has had varying success, but here’s a few bits and bobs I’ve worked on and I’m looking forward to possibly developing further…
Geiriau Fel Celf (words as art) discussion for Gwyl Newydd (26th September 2020)
As part of Gwyl Newydd (a Welsh language arts festival based in my hometown, made digital this year) I put on a panel discussion about use of the Welsh language within fine art, featuring artists Aur Bleddyn (@paentaur) and Rhianwen Williams (@rhianwenart). It was great to talk to other artists about how our work is received differently by audiences both in and outside of Wales, how we’ve dealt with changes in our work environments over the past few months, and the importance of creating honest work in our native language to both us personally and our home communities.
This is available to watch here!
Lots of writing
After getting really into use of text and language within Geiriau’n Fwy last semester, I’ve been doing a lot of writing as a way to document thoughts in passing that I’d like to return to and expand into other work. This has been in the form of poetry, articles etc. (it seems odd to assign some type of form to them as they’re quite spontaneous and unstructured). I shared some of this on my good friend Ash’s new multi-media publication ekphriasis along with some stuff on my social media. Ekphriasis is being printed as a bumper zine very soon (available to preorder on the website now!), including my piece on “how lockdown is putting art back where it belongs” amongst loads of other really genuinely brilliant content!!
Here’s a few poetry-type works I’ve done. I’ve found that lockdown has given me more time to build my voice in written works which has been refreshing.
I read Naomi Wolf’s ‘The Beauty Myth’ and then started thinking A LOT about my own relationship with “beauty”
I think committing more time to this sort of work has pushed me to take my own thoughts a bit more seriously and to pace myself when it comes to developing how I express them. I’m very used to jumping straight into visual art as a form of expression, so I’m looking forward to exploring writing as a starting point for more structured narratives within my visual work. It’s also been a great opportunity to loosen up a bit and be really honest with myself and my audience, which is something that I find to be incredibly important to the integrity of my creative process.
Photography
Some experimental self-portraits, toying with ideas about Celtic identity and/or stereotypes. I did a lot of research on ethnographic film earlier this year, and the photographic documentation of Highland clans. A lot of these images were exaggerated and almost exoticized versions of Highland traditions that paralleled a lot of my own Welsh Celtic culture. I wanted to play around with all this by performing elements of my own culture, reclaiming its stereotypes by turning the camera onto myself. The backdrop is an NHS blanket, the shawl is a traditional Welsh wool blanket. I’m dressed up in my mother’s jewellery and holding a hand-made candle/torch. I used to work a lot with wax and I’d love to do more of it as it’s a really weird, tactile material.
the recurring face
I’m really enjoying playing around with this squiggly face motif a lot. I think maybe it ties in with how I’ve been missing seeing people, and how I’ve been quite confused while trying to make sense of everything I’ve experienced recently.
