Dark Tales

So i went to an exhibition last week at Llantarnam Grange arts centre, called Dark Tales. It included work by Julie Arkell, Amanda and Matt Caines, Jenifer Collier, Kate Gilliand, Virginia Head, Catrin Howell, Anna Collette Hunt, Anya Keeley, Anna Lewis, Emma Molony, Grainne Morton, Cleo Mussi and Sophie Woodrow. The work there was based on fairy tales and  folklore, but not sweet soothing tales but dark and twisted tales.

I absolutely loved the work! there was a range of media and techniques used, for example Amanda and Matt Caines work is a mixture of stitch techniques and engraving on shed antler to create free standing sculpture and hanging pieces.

Jennifer Collier works amazingly with paper, creating her paper ‘fabrics’ by bonding, waxing, trapping and stitching. She uses old fairy tale and folklore story pages, stitches ad embroiders onto them showing us text, giving a glimpse of the story, she them makes these into dresses, shoes and gloves.

Anna Lewis’ work is outstanding, it has a bit of a fashion twist and uses jewellery and taxidermy! She produced my favorite work of the day, often using myths as a starting point her work is about magic and imagination but she is exploring a much darker theme. I just absolutely loved her mixture of fashion and jewellery, here are some of my favorites…

To see the catalogue of the work exhibited check out the website