- Venue
- Oriel Myrddin
- Location
- Wales
Edwina Bridgeman’s exhibition at Oriel Myrrdin in Carmarthen comes to an end this weekend having toured the UK since April 2008. It originated from New Brewery Arts in Cirencester.
Oriel Myrrdin is a beautiful gallery in West Wales that shows a variety of exhibitions that bridge the divide between Fine Art, Applied Art, Craft and Design. This was my first visit and I was impressed.
Edwina Bridgeman’s installation Orchard filled the main gallery space and consisted of a number of individual pieces, collective works, and a battered kitchen table used for the creation of work by visitors in response to the ideas explored in the show. The work explores ideas of memory and storytelling (Something the gallery will expand on in the next exhibition, A Winters Tale opening on 6th November).
The work on show here illustrates people’s personal stories and experiences. Edwina Bridgeman is a collector, not only of tales, but also of driftwood, found things, discarded things, lost things. She gathers them together and weaves her stories, creating elaborate theatrical settings that hint at her experience as a scene painter. The various elements are lovingly brought together to create objects that have an imaginative and lively character all of their own. Although well-made, there is something wonderful about the way that the work has an unfinished quality, they are not laboured, they still have life in them. There is a huge range of skills being employed to imbue the misplaced and found with richness.
The exhibition was conceived as an evolving group of work, that would encourage viewers to contribute their stories, and the artist would, in response, create new work. The three large-scale trees, which make up the orchard were the least successful pieces in the exhibition. I particularly liked the Tree of Life, a series of pieces named after local apple varieties, and a bird house piece.
There is something child-like and innocent about the work, which I like. I find myself forgiving the almost sentimental aspects of it. I am drawn in with excitement and wonder at the objects found in charity shops, given new life and meaning in the branches of a tree. A china budgie, a plastic toy cow, a clothes brush “made in England”. The objects, which, as a child, I remember being fascinated by, are given new meaning and act as signifiers to a time gone by.