Sam Aldridge, Avi Allen, Amanda Blake, Matthew Douglas, Johana Hartwig, Maura Hazelden, George Manson, Phil McAthey, Erin Rickard, Seren Stacey, Sarah Tierney
Front garden installations at numbers 18,19,20,30,39,47,61,76,91,95,103 Ninian Road, Cardiff
Saturday 18th October – Sunday 19th October.
All day with guided tour each day at 2:00pm
Rhôd is an annual exhibition that takes place in rural West Wales. One of the main objectives of Rhôd is to site contemporary art beyond the gallery. The Rhôd Artists’ Group welcomes this further opportunity to show selected artists as ‘Rhôd in Roath/Rhôd yn y Rhath’ following last year’s success.
The artists:
Sam Aldridge
47 Ninian Road
Forms (Sculpture Garden)
“Sculpture is the art of the hole and the lump” August Rodin
www.openemptyspaces.co.uk www.b-r-g.org
Avi Allen
91 Ninian Road
ethics of a weeding finger
…histories of weeding women
…towards nurturing nettles
…tenderly displanting
…desiring undesirable plants
…unbounding garden boundaries
…pondering the ethics of a weeding finger
Through a process of ‘gentle displanting’, avi aims to reveal and confuse human centric notions of plants and ecological hierarchy.
Avi co-founded and manages Capel Y Graig, an artist led space in mid west Wales, committed to facilitating creative dialogue and critical debate through artistic experiment and audience engagement.
Amanda Blake
95 Ninian Road
Fugitive
“A colour which is made of azurite and giallorino is green. This is good on wall and on panel. It is tempered with yolk of egg. If you want it to be more beautiful, put in a little arzica. And also it will be a handsome colour if you put into the azurite some wild plums, crushing them up; and make a verjuice of them, and put four or six drops of this verjuice on this azurite; and it will be a beautiful green. It will not stand exposure to the air; and in the course of time the juice of the plums will eventually disappear’’ Cennino d’Andrea Cennini, on the most handsome of colours for foliage, 1400s
Whilst many of the colours in Cennini’s handbook can still be made (their name and availability are still within grasp), this particular green may only exist in the imagination. At the very least, if it did become known precisely which plants the ‘wild plums’ and ‘arzica’ are derived from, and assuming the toxic lead antimonite that makes up giallorino is brought back into use, this green might exist – if only for a fleeting moment, as it is what is termed a ‘fugitive’, a colour that changes on exposure to air or proximity to other chemicals.
My practice in painting is process driven and minimal in nature, using raw materials in fresco and watercolour as a means to engage with ‘nature’ and issues surrounding sustainability, the environment and value. The idea of Cennini’s green and its ‘fugitive’ nature in both allegorical and physical terms allows a point of departure for work in the garden at 95, where work will explore the desire for permanence against that which is fleeting.
Matthew Douglas
76 Ninian Road
Saltworks
Matthew Douglas’s saltworks bring sheer man-made materials in direct contact with the slow forces of nature.
A mixture of salt and paint is applied to the steel plate and the work is exposed to the elements for a given time. As the paint preserves the steel, the salt corrodes it and the tension between them creates an image.
When sited outside this work continues to evolve, images reshape themselves.
It is only when this work is purchased and (perhaps) installed inside that the image is preserved and settles.
Johana Hartwig
19 Ninian Road
Dissected 19
Once upon a time in Roath discarded carrier bags decorated the bushes and trees up and down it’s streets like urban flowers, caught on thorns, twigs and railings and were free to dance around the corners of alleys with leaves, fag filters and fluff. Since the 5p carrier bag charge has come into force in Wales, these urban flowers are far rarer and the bags in the work were sourced from deep in the bottom of the drawers of kitchens across the City and one dank cellar.
Johana has made several works that have involved the use of disposable carrier bags. Her fascination for them is tied up partially in the way that they are manufactured as utilitarian objects, yet crease, move and develop character at the rate of something far more organic. Whilst preparing a piece of work for Rhod last year ‘The Catapult tree‘ Johana started to dissect bags, first snipping their handles, then carefully slicing down each of their sides with the seam, to create the largest possible area, like an animal hide. It was this intact shape, the dissected bag hide, that Johana hung up, in all it’s many dimensions and colours, for the light to fall through and for the wind to blow and make crackle.
The washing line is a utilitarian object, that might be found in a garden, although perhaps not in a front garden and perhaps not in the smarter parts of Roath. Hanging up our detritus in public, celebrating it and allowing the work to move as the elements take it, seems converse to the ornate, fixed Victorian aesthetic displayed in the more manicured front gardens of Roath of bay windows, trimmed lawns and bird baths.
Johana Hartwig responds to the physicality and spirit of spaces and objects. Her work explores issues around value and disposability, linked to human presence in natural and urban environments. Johana’s work is mainly site specific and often takes the form of intervention
http://www.johanahartwig.co.uk/
Maura Hazelden
30 Ninian Road
enwi’r gwyllt | naming the wild
On September 10th 2014 I looked in the garden for wild plants [weeds] and named them. I use plants to map my world.
Collecting plant names in English and the Brythonic languages is an ongoing project. Here I speak the English and the Cymraeg.
David Shepherd will work out where the picture labels go in the garden as I will not be able to return in person to the garden for Made in Roath.
I lived close to this road in the mid 1980s and the late 1990s.
Diolch | Thank you: Jacob Whittaker & David Shepherd
Inside, outside, site specific and in the gallery. Underlying threads of textiles and the domestic weave through the work. Preoccupations with: words, body & the tactile, land, place, space, memory, perception, plants, lists. How do we experience space? How do we locate ourselves in spaces? And place – what makes a place particular? How can we map our world?
Public transport user.
Cymru | Wales UK
archive of work: maurahazelden.blogspot.co.uk
word based experiments: wordsearchingfor.blogspot.co.uk
mixed bag: flofflach.blogspot.co.uk
both have links to further information, work…and other blogs!
Phil McAthey
103 Ninian Road
Birdsong (becoming-music) 2014
This work uses early morning birdsong to examine Bergson’s notion of duration where time is heterogeneous because no two moments are identical. Duration can only be shown indirectly, through images that can never reveal a complete picture. As well as duration this work is also concerned with Deleuze’s concept of ‘becoming’ where the term is used to describe the continual production of difference. He regarded ‘becoming’ as the pure movement evident in changes between particular events, seen by deducing the differences from a particular start and end-point.
Deleuze also believed that each becoming has its own duration. Becoming should not be seen as a kind of ‘temporal backdrop’ to events. The process of becoming is of an unfixed duration – hence the use of birdsong to illustrate it here. The original work consisted of a 28 minute film but here I am only able to show a single image – a still – from the film. Although no two images are ever the same, it would be difficult to discern any difference between this and any other image from the film that I could have chosen. I also find it interesting that this work consists of some examples of birdsong that are highly unlikely to ever be heard in a city environment – it is situated in the ‘wrong landscape’ so to speak.
George Manson
20 Ninian Road
WHAT I WROTE AND WHAT I INTENDED TO WROTE
In the Garden there were tall rods with little antennae. The antennae picked up radio signals. There was no speaker with which to play the transmissions.
The rods were made of wood, and painted with green gloss paint. A layer of grey primer had been applied before the gloss. It took longer to dry than the tin implied.
We had to drill into the paving slabs to attach the rods. The rods were painted in green gloss and looked great. At the top there were antennae which picked up radio signals, but nobody could hear them.
There were three rods. We wanted to put more in but my friend got hungry so we went for lunch and when we got back we didn’t feel like drilling into paving slabs anymore.
***
The back door was wooden and very old. It wasn’t much to look at. It had a keyhole and a handle and it squeaked when we opened and closed it.
My friend oiled the hinges and it stopped squeaking when we opened it, but still squeaked a bit when we closed it.
***
At lunch time we went to a pub. My friend was more hungry than I was but we each had the same meal.
My friend ordered pie and vegetables with a pint of Bass. I ordered the same.
‘I’ll have the same as my friend actually.’
‘The Bass, as well?’
‘Yes please.’
***
When I got home I realised I had got green gloss on the elbow of my jumper. I was disappointed, and regretted not wearing old clothing, but didn’t let it get me down.
I had a shower and stayed in there for at least half an hour. I usually don’t take more than five minutes but this time I just stood there.
Erin Rickard
39 Ninian Road
My New Home For You II
For Rhod 2010, Erin Rickard responded to the birdhouses that were already located in the gardens. She created a new home for the fictional owl her Dad told stories about while she was growing up. The birdhouse was an adapted bedside table that was covered in words written in Erin’s childhood handwriting. The artwork told the story of the old wise owl from the perspective of her younger self.
The artwork tries to reconnect to the pleasure of childhood innocence, inventiveness and imagination. “My New Home For You” serves as a reminder to the ideals passed on through her Dad’s stories.
During the exhibition birds nested in Erin’s sculpture, which inspired her to create a series of bedside table birdhouses each telling stories about love, forgiveness and dreams.
For Rhod in Roath 2014 Erin is creating the second sculpture in the series of artworks titled “My New Home For You”. This sculpture will reside in the garden of 39 Ninian Road for the duration of a year, in an attempt to once again nurture and give shelter to new life.
The majority of Rickard’s work is autobiographical and acts as a series of self-portraits.
The work often gives insight into contemporary social conditions: the desire to understand life, our relationships to one another and whether we belong. Ritual is at the core of her practice, exploring rites of passage and examining the subtle differences between who we are publicly and privately.
Seren Stacey
18 Ninian Road
Conkers Bonkers
Growing up in Pontcanna, I remember Autumn in Cardiff being the loveliest thing. Walking to the school bus, crunchy leaves drifting over garden walls and filling the streets, the misty hint of rain in the air, and competitive conker collecting in Llandaff fields, stuffing dad’s bike saddle bags with conkers as dusk descended. For a Cowbridge Road girl, Roath was the land of leisure, terrapin, rose gardens and rowing boats, bohemians, ice creams and hanging out. This garden intervention is inspired by Jacob Whittaker’s path of vinyl records last year (entitled Now!18), and is made in celebration of this green city in arguably its most beautiful season.
http-//serenstacey.blog#1036909
Sarah Tierney
61 Ninian Road
Quietus
Latin, (he is) at rest; see quiet.]
Release from life; death.
An Untimely Death
We Made Soup together – this work is for Gerry, my light and shining star and we did make a lovely vegetable soup, late in the evening of Friday 11th April of this year and had a lovely supper, the last one together.
The photographs are moments in time, random moments, before and after Gerry. They hang in cellophane bags, blowing in the wind, gently breathing like the breath we all take for granted each and every second of our lives.
I dedicate this exhibition to all of his family, his children and his grandchildren, his best friend Dave, and to Tom Santos in America for his book, writing about the loss of his son; his words got me through some terrible nights.
I also wish to extend my dedication to everyone who has grieved or is grieving for the loss of a loved one; my thoughts and love are with you.
Gerald Roy Morris
1952 – 2014
Sarah would welcome responses and images relating to ‘Quietus’ via contact below …
tierney_sarah@icloud.co#1037A8B
Thank you to Lucy and Matt, Dorcas Pennyfeather Frazer, Bee and Roland, Kirsty Foster, Louise Knight, Rosie and Emil, Laura Bradford and the Mellor family who kindly provided front gardens for the show. The event would have been impossible without their enthusiastic co-operation.
Rhôd 