Thanks to everyone who has visited the Transformations exhibition which we at Gwendraeth Arts Lab have helped towards putting on in the fabulous Powerhouse – Pwerdy, Llandysul ; and which I oversaw the curation of. It’s only open for one more day, so if you’d like to see it you’ll need to head over before the end of the day tomorrow, Tuesday 2 November.

And if you didn’t manage to get along to see it, I’ve put together a gallery of images to bring an experience of it to you :

The show was an exploration of the transformations that occur in the everyday and the natural world: how weather, seasons, circumstances and time break down and transform matter; and how our material acts of drawing, tearing, weaving, casting, assembling and building can transform our view of our world.

“We question what it is that we love, value, preserve, remember. Many of the works are vessels: holding imaginative spaces open; containing the possibility of small transformations.”

And some of the real highlights :

Arthur Thomas, telling the stories which adhere to commonplace objects:

“This installation is inspired by the discovery of objects found in a drawer used by my mother, leading me to explore our relationship with the value we put on objects, however insignificant they may seem to be. My work alludes to how objects can be secreted away, intentionally or unintentionally, to be rediscovered from time to time, leaving a trace of a past existence.”

Keziah Ferguson bringing our attention, through her sculptures, to an underlying awareness and comfort in land and belonging:

“Often materialising through the form of various vessels and organic shapes, Keziah’s practice aims to illustrate the sense of safety and motherly belonging that she receives from the land.”

Kerry Collison, confronting questions of gender and fertility with her sculptural practice and hot metal and performances:

“There is a focus on the motif of the vessel, a form that gestates and incubates, especially hot or living. This becomes an archaic metaphor for the female body; functional or unfunctional.”

Julie Hutton, exploring alternative possibilities through visual metaphor in her large ceramic works:

“An official feminist pataphysician since 2020, Julie employs the ‘Pataphor’, an unusually extended metaphor, where an idea or concept takes on a life of its own.”

Angela James creating vessels that exist at the verge of disintegration:

“They are non-functional and ephemeral, on the verge of disintegration, but containing a space which, like the seed head, encompasses loss, preservation and new possibility.”

And my own work (Sian Barlow), my rewoven drawings and “A bowl for sharing small joys”:

“A bowl for sharing small joys:

the texture of the world is fine-grained

the texture of our lives is fine-grained

the crushing idea that we have to be “big” to make a difference

when it’s clear that every action makes a difference to something

and that small things are important

in, of and to themselves”

[Photos by Kerry Collison / Sian Barlow / Natalie Hughes-Owen]