Exhibition

SAFLE CELF: Northern Soul ‘Anyone of us……’

Peter Lewis

20/09/2025 – 08/11/2025

During the 1960/70s, the North of England was predominantly a working class area where heavy industry prevailed. Many youngsters found employment in the local factories and career prospects beyond this were limited, but secure. Social clubs, bars and local entertainment were frequently an escape from this routine existence. A music phenomenon was emerging, the "Northern Soul". This term was coined by Dave Godin, a music journalist and record shop owner in 1970 as a shorthand term to describe this type of obscure, energetic music, to help his staff direct customers to these desired records.

Obsessed followers of this type of dance music made the trek from all along the North Wales coast to the hallowed ground of the Casino. Gathering every weekend on a Saturday evening, to spend their night dancing away from midnight to eight on a Sunday morning. It wasn’t long before these devotees found Colwyn Bay Pier an ideal venue, and several all-nighters were arranged and took place there too.

This exhibition explores the social history of those involved at that time; the work attempts to articulate the multi-faceted nature of the movement. It is a snapshot of personal experiences, but also references common imagery, recognisable to those who attended a variety of venues.

Y WAL A CEI LLECHI : Gathered: Brooms and Brushes from the Welsh Landscape

Rosa Harradine

20/09/2025 – 10/11/2025

Rosa Harradine is a broom and brush maker based in Carmarthen, west Wales. Working with natural materials and traditional techniques, she creates objects that are both functional and beautiful - tools that impart a sense of presence. Her brushes and brooms are made to be used, yet they also hold their own as sculptural forms, honouring the everyday act of sweeping.

This exhibition explores what it means to source locally in a globalised world. Rosa’s production work typically relies on imported plant fibres from countries like Mexico and Indonesia, which sit at the heart of the global supply chain. She is often asked, “Can’t you just pick some grasses here?” This exhibition seeks to explore that question using foraged materials from Wales.

Some of the resulting works are functional; others are more experimental, charting the challenges and limits of making with local materials. Rush and bramble fibres have proven the most promising, although also the most time-consuming to process, making them economically unviable at scale. The series includes a broom made entirely from imported materials, one incorporating foraged elements, and a traditional birch besom broom.

DERBYNFA: Heartstrings: Extended

Ceris Dyfi Jones

19/07/25 – 09/11/25

To be twisted, strung along, tied together… the language we use around thread is so interestingly intertwined with the language of being human. Through Heartstrings, a series that I am continuously developing as new experiences proceed to shape the fabric of my own life, I explore this tension and connection, this line between the soft and serious, by introducing multiple figures with their own woven stories.

Exploring themes such as attachment, solitude, fear and triumph, this collection extends the opportunity to share in these experiences, allowing each person to see what they will within the figures and their adjoining heartstrings.

AR Y FFRÂM | Towards a Deep Map of Bwlch y Ddeufaen.

Alison Craig

16/10/2025 – 19/01/2026

My work as a visual artist investigates the interfaces between drawing, painting and printmaking and the relations between figuration and abstraction. Observational studies made on location are developed in the studio to evoke a sense of place and the exhilaration of the changing seasons; memories of journeys made and a sense of time passing. These preoccupations have kindled an interest in “Deep Mapping”, in which conventional cartography merges with and is subverted by human experience. Deep mapping addresses questions of time and scale, and ideally includes graphic elements, time-based media and a “database”.

Bwlch y Ddeufaen lies 1,300m above sea-level in an important historic landscape on the edge of Eryri National Park. Bwlch y Ddeufaen carried the main highway to the west for at least two thousand years. It remains a public right of way, desolate and windswept, crossed by of trains of huge electricity pylons.

This Deep Map of Bwlch y Ddeufaen started life in 2020 as the final project in an Art & Archaeology distance-learning module with the University of the Highlands and Islands, Orkney. A deep mapping project is, by its’ very nature, open- ended and liable to continuous readjustment. The work displayed here comprises a stage in a journey, rather than its’ ending.

ORIEL CAFFI | Interactions at the Venice Biennale

Emily Groves

10/07/25 – October

Emily Groves is an artist and illustrator based on Anglesey, in North Wales. Originally from Canada, Emily works mainly outdoors, drawing wildlife and people as they interact with the natural world. Having just completed her MA in Children’s Book Illustration at the Cambridge School of Art, Emily was thrilled to receive a Fellowship with the British Council to live in Venice, Italy for one month. In Venice, she worked with other Fellows at the British Pavillion during the Biennale Architettura and conducted research for her creative project, ‘Interactions at the Venice Biennale’. ‘Interactions at the Venice Biennale’ is a collection of sketches, paintings and illustrations that capture the sense of place of the city, and Emily’s experience of living there in May 2025. Working in different media helped Emily explore the city and capture the excitement people felt about the Biennale.

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