Bird house
Lucy Anna Howson | Abby Poulson | Dili Pitt | Katie Trick | Lily Ella Westacott
Exhibitions opens Friday 28th May 2021*
Continues until Saturday 10th July 2021
Gallery open Wednesday – Saturday, 11-6pm by appointment only.
*Dates may change due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic
Five Emerging Elysium Studio Based Artists Collaborate in Debut Group Show.
Bird House is the collaborative identity of five young women artists working with paint, photography, drawing and sculpture who unexpectedly found themselves in residence at Elysium Gallery’s Studios during the pandemic. This exhibition seeks to share individual discoveries and processes, as they nestle deeper into their growing practice and gather inspiration from new spaces and experiences, both within the domestic scene and the natural environment.
Responding to the landscapes surrounding her, South Wales artist Katie Trick begins with vague ideas of place and subject. Pairing places with found imagery, pattern, and colour, she uses observation and imagination to find ways to glorify a sometimes, unexciting landscape by creating unreachable landscapes that she longs for.
In reflection of her domestic environment, Lucy Howson depicts a modern commentary of everyday life through painting and object making. Celebrating the domestic scene, she believes that looking at people’s living spaces allows us to see individual identities and the cultural and political influences of its time, whilst also personally exploring the effects our environment has on wellbeing.
The paintings of Swansea based multidisciplinary artist Lily Ella Westacott not only explore her surroundings, but also herself, as she draws on sacred energies and geometry, that not only exist in the physical world, but deep in the depths of the soul. Her works form shapes and diagrams which create a language of their own, ready to be interpreted by the viewer.
Taking a break from studies, Dili Pitt’s sculptural practice explores making as a physical expulsion of personal and cultural anxieties. Her surreal figures act almost as contemporary worry dolls, as embodied manifestations of an over-thinking and oversaturated state of mind. Taking inspiration from the theory of the uncanny valley, Pitt explores ideas of semblance, presence and the figurative in her work. Her anxious bodies are chilling in their uneasy depiction of pop culture’s subconscious, and at the same time reassuring in their comedic and familiar appearance.
Discovering new landscapes in her immediate surroundings, Carmarthenshire based artist Abby Poulson often uses her photographic process broadly and experimentally to explore ideas surrounding her rural homeland, whilst also responding to Welsh identity, environmental concerns, memory, and place. Her more recent works investigate local sites with previous industrial activity, as she reflects on challenging these environments in the land, both physically and introspectively.
Instagram – @birdhouseswansea.
Visitors to elysium gallery WILL HAVE TO BOOK a FREE time slot:
Household Name Tickets, Multiple Dates | Eventbrite
(if you have already booked to see any of the other exhibitions you do not need to book again).
Due to COVID -19 we have a limited capacity to ensure public and staff safety.
Doors to the exhibition at elysium will open on the hour every hour for ten minutes between 11am and 5pm.
If you want to book another slot straight after so you can spend longer with the exhibition, then you may do so if spaces are free.
