Exhibitions

Phil Green
Beyond the Horizon

29 August – 11 October 2026
Phil Green’s art explores landscape using the ritualistic process of painting to record time and place. Interwoven is memory which explores the relationship between experience, history and personal narrative. The past is evident and influences our response to the physical environment. Through exploration of the land we can fuse time.

The land and the art are concerned with layering. The act of painting reflects the earth’s physical history and helps us discover a primal language which is hidden but can be revealed in deep time.

Abstraction can reveal conflict between the observed world and the subjective world of the artist’s imagination. Imagined imagery and symbols are as real as the physical world. Intuitive acts of gestural mark marking, texture and layering can bring depth to a painterly language and reveal a secret history within the work itself.

Llinos Griffin
Two’s Company

29 August - 11 October 2026
Llinos Griffin won the 'Emerging Artist' prize during Plas Brondanw's Open exhibition in 2025, together with May Bell. An agreement to hold this exhibition was part of the prize.

Llinos Griffin uses plastic ropes that pollute the beaches of Ceredigion Bay and transforms them to convey the beauty of the north Wales coast. In this collection, the theme is seabirds and the pairing season bringing the hope that is felt at this time of year into the work too. The bright colours, despite being so unnatural and out of place within a wild habitat when Llinos finds them on the beach, are full of energy and contrast. Every stitch offers therapy and although it is a very small act to remove these small pieces of such a destructive material from the sea forever, it shows how it is possible to reuse it to create a beauty we can enjoy.

Sally Gaukrodger-Cowan
Tasel Paradwys

29 August – 11 October 2026
The upcycled Tasel Paradwys draws inspiration from Susan Williams-Ellis’s Birds of Paradise plate, reimagined here as a three-dimensional textile form. Its colours and shapes echo those found across the Plas Brondanw estate, grounding the work within its immediate landscape.

Constructed from upcycled waste materials and rope offcuts, the piece transforms discarded fibres into a freestanding, experimental tassel, informed by the endangered heritage craft of passementerie (Heritage Crafts,2025).

Functioning as a bird bath and feeder, the work establishes a tension between waste and beauty. Installed at Plas Brondanw, the piece engages directly with its environment, interacting with wildlife while inviting a relationship with visitors, fostering an exchange between art, craft, waste and the natural world.

May Bell

29 August – 11 October 2026
May Bell won the 'Emerging Artist' prize during Plas Brondanw's Open exhibition in 2025, together with Llinos Griffin. An agreement to hold this exhibition was part of the prize.

May predominantly works with wool, creating large-scale abstract textiles that experiment with composition and colour. She draws inspiration from her local natural environment to create bold, playful and contemporary expressions. Her practice is continually evolving to be as sustainable as possible; she is currently using a combination of deadstock wool (from the carpet industry), natural dyes, and recycled fabric. The work photographed is part of a series of abstract tufted textiles inspired by the Celtic rainforest near Bleanau Ffestiniog.

John Thomson
Animal + Vegetable = Mineral

17 October – 29 November 2026
An exhibition selected from over forty years of studio practice, which includes imagery from collaborations with designers, musicians and filmmakers. The drawing and sculpture are a product of a range of diverse influences, including flora & fauna, fashion & textiles, the night sky and noir crime fiction.

Steel, scored, etched, hammered, welded and ocasionally combined with wood, ceramic and stone sections, is my basic material. I use a range of tools and processes from lasers to hammers or dental tools and fine emery cloth. My methods are akin to those of a vehicle panel beater who shapes and curves individual metal sections to form a complete coherent structure.

To echo both Manet & Hockney. ‘I am a man who just likes to draw.’ Drawing can function as an instinctive response mechanism, a diary or simply a way to create imaginary worlds.

I work from a studio on a working farm in Hampshire, England - no rural idyll, more a green machine connected directly to the supply and demand food chain. A low manned, highly mechanised industry set in the rolling downland of Britain’s newest National Park populated by beef cattle, grain silos and shuttling commuters all set against a seemingly bucolic tapestry of flora and fauna.

Images of the cycles of plant growth and decay, gleaned from ‘working’ the same patch of garden for over 50 years, led to an invitation to undertake a Residency at Oxford University Botanic Garden in 2004, working within the historic plant collection alongside gardeners and scientists.