Penny Hallas

New work showing at West Wharf Gallery, Cardiff CF1 5DB.
March 15 – April 26th. Open Fri & Sat 10am – 5pm
Event 26th April 12-3pm. Free – all welcome.

Concentric is the latest of a long-running series celebrating International Women’s Day, conceived
and curated by Jacqueline Alkema.

Top image: Operative 116. (2020-2025) Oil and oil bar on 5 panels. Total size 80 x 55 cms
Below: Operative 122 (2025) Oil and oil bar on 5 reversible panels (each 15 x 44.5cms)

Using the modernist art aesthetic I was born into; inspired by engineering manuals and diagrams demonstrating systems for the use of resources; responding to vast engineering works I witness in and around the Bannau Brycheiniog National Park, the ‘Operatives’ relate to intermeshed creative and destructive forces.

I am grateful to artist Jane Lawson for this reference: ‘In her 2021 book Hospicing Modernity, Vanessa Machado de Oliveira describes modernity as a worlding story, one that presents itself “as a general project of civilisation that seeks to engineer society through humanism, reason, science, progress, and technology” but that rests on a foundation of violent extraction, exploitation and ecocide that is leading to climate breakdown. We need to enable modernity to die a good death in order for something better to be born, but we will only be able to create something genuinely different if we first become aware and suspicious of what modernity allows us to desire and imagine.’
Jane Lawson. Artist Environmental Lead at Castlefield Gallery and co-ordinator of SPARK Network

Catseyes en route: Llangatwg to Cardiff for The Reading Group Exhibition at Oriel Canfas
9 Sept – 5 Oct 2023
9 Sept Opening 3-6pm

Oriel Canfas, 44a Glamorgan St, Cardiff, CF5 1QS
Open 1-4.30 Tues – Fri, 11-4.30 Sat
With Frances Woodley, Chris Nurse, Susan Adams, Jacqueline Alkema, Jan Bennett, Jane Fletcher, Kay Keogh, David Gould, Carol Hiles, Heather Parnell, Tiff Oben, Jess Woodrow
Co-curated by Chris Nurse and Frances Woodley

Image: Route 2 (7) 2022, part of a series of 24 paintings on glass catseyes (oil, each 1.5 cm) seated in 12 rubber casings (acrylic, each 9.5 x 8cms x 5cms)

Susan Adams and I are starting a new project together, thanks to Arts Council Wales and National Lottery support.

After more than a century, the physical remains of the former Mid-Wales Hospital are falling into the final stages of dissolution, but it remains a site of intense and complex emotional resonance for many different communities and groups. Entering imaginatively into the site and the hidden stories it suggests, we will invite the voices of people who have experienced mental health issues there or do so currently in the community. Culminating in co-produced arts events/installations, we will form new narratives in creative ways before both site and memories are lost to us.

Mae Susan Adams a finnau yn dechrau prosiect newydd gyda’n gilydd, wedi’i gynorthwyo gan Gyngor Celfyddau Cymru a’r Loteri Genedlaethol.

Ar ôl dros ganrif, mae olion ffisegol o’r cyn-Ysbyty Canolbarth Cymru yn disgyn i gamau olaf o’i ddiddymiad, ond fe barheir i fod yn safle o berthnasedd emosiynol dwys a chymhleth i lawer o gymunedau a grwpiau gwahanol. Trwy archwilio’r safle mewn ffordd ddychmygus a cheisio darganfod y straeon cudd ymhlyg, byddwn yn gwahodd lleisiau unigolion o fewn y gymuned sydd wedi delio gyda phroblemau iechyd meddwl ac unigolion a phrofir yn bresennol. Byddwn yn cloi gyda digwyddiadau/gosodiadau celfyddydol wedi’u cyd-gynhyrchu, gan llunio chwedlau newydd mewn ffyrdd creadigol cyn i ni golli’r safle a’r atgofion i gyd.

https://www.a-n.co.uk/blogs/a-private-land-tir-diarffordd/post/52629564/

18 Mar – 29 Apr Paintings included in Concentric, West Wharf, Cardiff, CF1 5DB. Thurs, Fri, Sat, 10am-5pm.

One strand of my work is the exploration of psychological states of being and something of the way the world
and the human psyche interact with and modify one another; the way that constructs of reality are continually
being transformed by the flow of fantasy, and by the traumas and pleasures of engagement.

Recurrent images of wounding, decapitation and dismemberment act as metaphors for psychological events
such as the movement from closure into freedom; loss or extension of identity; damage, scattering and the
search for reintegration and so on. The Achievements series is based on heraldic symbols of power and
prestige, seen on a 17th century monument in Salisbury Cathedral.

Jun 7 – Jul 2 2022
Group show ‘inspired by the time the world went to sleep’
The Art Shop, 8 Cross Street, Abergavenny, Monmouthshire. NP7 6SD
Tuesday – Saturday 09:30 a 17:00

Earlier this year I returned to painting on cat’s eyes, making 2 distinct series: Route 1 and Route 2.
Here’s a tiny preview of Route 1 – this image is a close up of 2 paintings reflecting on inner and outer journeys. View from Eglwys Faen cave mouth and horseshoe bat in Agen Allwedd caving system, Mynydd Llangatwg (each lense 1.5cms – oil paint).

Thanks David Morgan Davies and the Art Shop

Revenants (2019-22) in Concentric at tactileBOSCH Lounge, in celebration of International Women’s Day
9-31 Mar 2022 Weds-Sat 1-6pm
18 Mar 6-10pm, Event night with performances

With Jacqueline Alkema, Adéolá Dewis, Leona Jones, Temmah and Patricia Ziad
tactileBOSCH Lounge, Capitol Centre, Queen’s Street, Cardiff CF10 2HQ
@tactilebosch

31 Mar 7-9pm DECENTRIC – live performances with guests Nia Davies, Allen Fisher, Tessa Waite,
Steven Hitchins, Beth Greenhalgh, Lyndon Davies and others…

There is an autobiographical aspect to Revenants, making use as it does of old work and new riffs on old themes, all carefully contained in repurposed antique and vintage frames. Traditionally, a frame closes off and anchors the work of art, reinforcing its status as a solid marketable object in the world. The ones I’ve used here, however, have had their original contents ripped from them, including family portraits, and replaced with my own totems, spirits and reimagined versions of the dead. The question for me is – what does that do to the work and the beings referred to, and what does that do to the frame?

Without Borders opens at Elysium Gallery Swansea, before going on tour.
17 Jul 3-10pm – 28 Aug
The project seeks to remove barriers, create alliances and connect with neighbours. Elysium Gallery open Weds-Sat 11am-6pm. Check out their website for more info and how to visit.

Strainer Cap Nut (2021) is one of two pieces of mine included in the show: print, ink, acrylic and oil on paper (A3). I’m delighted to be in a contributing group with:
@susan_j_adams MoragColquhoun, Lyndon Davies, Allen Fisher, Richard Harris, @stevenhitchins @sarah.rhys Christopher Twigg, @waitetessa

Cardiff M.A.D.E. Summer Open/Art Prize
10 Jul – 7 Aug 21
For more details and how to visit, see @cardiff_m.a.d.e and M.A.D.E. website

Operative 121 (2021) oil on canvas on board. 122 x 157 cms. Also showing Operative 117 and 119.

12 Black Mountain views in The BIG Small House Summer Open
1 – 31 Aug 2021
Oil on cats’ eyes gleaned from mountain roads (2016 – 2021)
THE BIG SMALL HOUSE SUMMER OPEN
small_house_gallery

Legacy 2 is one of two pieces currently available online at Cardiff M.A.D.E.