November 2024 - February 2025
The first of our triannual exhibitions held in the main gallery space (shop) this exhibition explores how female artists interact with their environment. Textile artist Lynda Shell has created one of a kind bags and quilts using silkscreen printed offcuts guided by an admiration for the rural African American women of Gee’s Band, Alabama. Contemporary impressionist painter Jane Morrow explores the notion of hiraeth in her landscape paintings; capturing fleeting but spiritually connecting moments, often painting environments that are at risk from climate change and development. Ceramicist Hilary Coole has created a collection inspired by our destruction of the planet. The female form represents mother earth and she is surrounded by abstract landscapes.
‘NO WASTE’ COLLECTION - Lynda Shell
“The ‘No Waste’ collection has been created using all the silkscreen printed off-cuts kept for many years from my handmade bag collections. I have never been able to throw away even the smallest of scraps believing that they would be useful one day.
In a world where sustainability and caring for the environment is at the forefront of our minds the idea of making something new and exciting out of what may otherwise be thrown away has been my driving challenge.
The inspiration for my final designs has come from my love of making quilts. I have a long-standing admiration of the quilts produced by woman from a small rural African American community of Gee’s Bend, Alabama, who become well known for their remarkable abstract quilts made from work clothes remnants and scraps.
With their distinctive bold aesthetic in mind the ‘No Waste’ collection has been crafted using a considered combination of colours, patterns & plains. Like the woman of Gee’s Bend I adopted an improvisational approach to placement, disregarding conventional geometrics and allowing the material to influence the creative process. Each product created is therefore completely unique and special.”
Jane Morrow
Jane Morrow is a north Wales based artist, mainly self taught, she draws inspiration from the elemental landscapes that surround her both in Wales and on her travels elsewhere. As a contemporary impressionist painter she is always seeking to capture the fleeting effects of light and atmosphere in her work. Creating beautiful, atmospheric pieces that connect her and the viewer to a sense of place. Her work also explores notions of nostalgia and Hiraeth, interpreting yearnings for places where one seeks a deep sense of belonging into her art. She is curious about the human need to spiritually connect to particular landscapes and loves to create such places in her work that the viewer can return to, offering them peaceful moments of memory and reflection. She is often concerned with painting natural places that are vulnerable to the effects of climate change and development.
“For me painting is a sensuous experience where I feel compelled to paint subjects that I have an emotional response to. I love to paint dramatic skies and elemental landscapes of North Wales, enthralled by its beauty and protective of its fragility yet always hopeful, chasing the light."
Whilst studying art and design at foundation level at Yale college, Wrexham in 1998; Jane spent a formative month in Florence, Italy. Having access to such amazing works of art in the Florentine galleries had a profound effect on her and when she got back to the uk she changed direction and studied History of art and literature at the University of Liverpool. She went on to teach, run workshops and write courses for Tate, Liverpool exploring and engaging the students with her passion for art history. With a bereavement that changed her perspectives on life she returned to creating art with her love of art history being the backbone of her creative endeavors. Jane paints both en plein air and in the studio, her paintings have featured in solo exhibitions and are collected both here in the UK and internationally
