Plas BrondanwSusan Williams-Ellis
Foundation (SWEF)
Foundation (SWEF)
post@susanwilliamsellis.org
01766 770590
post@susanwilliamsellis.org
01766 770590
We run a changing program of exhibitions throughout the year. We try to showcase a wide variety of work from conceptual to craft and design work, and we work with artists from all over the world. We exhibit works on all kinds of themes, but we are particularly interested in work that responds specifically to the location and its history and to the ideas of Clough and Amabel Williams-Ellis and their children about art, design, architecture, society, politics, planning, science, literature or any other matter they explored in their long and varied careers.
The 'Agored' and 'Agored Ifanc' exhibitions welcome applications from anyone, whether an experienced artist or a first-timer. We will set a theme for these shows which will vary from one year to the next, but based on pieces from the archive, which will be displayed opposite the contemporary works. Within the Open programme, we offer an emerging artist award and a people's award.
For more information about the awards, and how to submit work for the open exhibitions, follow the link to the 'applications' page, below.
We have decided to set a theme each year, going forwards. Items from the Susan Williams-Ellis archive will be curated according to the theme for the year, and this will also be the theme for the open and young open exhibitions. We invite artists who wish to have solo or group shows to consider responding to the theme, if they feel inspired to do so, although this is not a requirement. Events will also be curated to respond to the theme, where appropriate. The themes are deliberately broad and may be interpreted in any way that the artist feels is appropriate. The themes for the next five years are outlined below:
2024: Transformation
2025: Space
2026: Animal / Vegetable / Mineral
2027: Disturbance
2028: The Sea
Plas Brondanw Open Exhibition 2025 - Space
8 March 2025 - 4 May 2025
The theme of this year's exhibition is 'Space', and it has inspired a varied and exciting response among our artists, with works in all mediums from textiles and sculptures to oil paintings, photographs and drawings of all kinds. The content also varies from the mythological to the scientific and from the abstract to the figurative, and we have an amazing selection of experienced and new artists.
Mary Thomas: ‘All Artists are Frustrated Scientists’
Ceri H Pritchard – Unforseen Patterns
10 May – 22 June 2025
This exhibition of new work here at Oriel Brondanw represents a transition in my artistic journey. I am exploring new themes and reexamine earlier ones. Unforeseen Patterns is about reconciling the figurative and the abstract.
I have long been fascinated by patterns, both natural and human-made. Until recently, patterns were secondary or decorative in my paintings. Now, they are integral to the composition.
At this point in my life, I appreciate how (unforeseen) patterns of geographic relocation and the experience of different cultures have influenced my creative practice. The adventures of half a lifetime of living abroad and a recent return to my home country now inform each other.
Unforeseen Patterns also marks a change of materials: I used to paint primarily on canvas. The works exhibited here are made on hard supports, some of which are repurposed. This allows me to experiment with a wider range of media: plaster, pigments, sawdust, eggshells and horsehair. The move away from the canvas also relates to my earlier work as a sculptor.
Unforeseen Patterns is accompanied by a catalogue that demonstrates the development of my work and ideas over the last decade. It includes an essay by Dr Harry Heuser, and will be for sale during the exhibition period.
Eleanor Brooks: A Life in Portraits
28 June – 10 August 2025
As a sequel to the 2018 exhibition of her landscapes and to celebrate the anniversary of her birth in 1925, this exhibition focuses on the portraits Eleanor Brooks made during her career and, through them, tells the story of her extraordinary life as an artist and a mother. The selection includes early portraits painted when Eleanor was at art school in the late 1940s, intimate portraits of her own family and the au pair girls who lived with them, and paintings of the many schoolgirls she taught in London before moving back to live in Wales permanently in 1990. The exhibition would be incomplete without portraits of the exasperating yet lovable Mrs Spinks, the cleaning lady who knocked on Eleanor’s door in 1967 and provided her with seven productive years of subject matter for portraits, in almost every medium imaginable, both two- and three-dimensional. In these, and in all of her work, what shines so radiantly is Eleanor’s love of people and her wonder of the world in general.
Ensemble – Menna Angharad and Jeremy Stiff
16 August – 28 September 2025
Jeremy and Menna have titled their exhibition Ensemble as a celebration of their 25th anniversary together - of living together, of working side by side as artists, and of often exhibiting together. In a broader sense, they feel that pondering Ensemble is positive and constructive, we are in this world together, artist and subject, artwork and viewer, gallery and community, nation and world, environment and us…an antithesis to divisive ideologies.
Jeremy works with stone, wood and bronze. He distils his subjects down to simple, expressive shapes, concentrating on their essentials rather than literal form, and on the inherent physical qualities of the materials: the smoothness of marble, the translucence of alabaster, the grain of wood. The physicality of the materials themselves and the working of them are as important to him as the subject matter. Jeremy will also be exhibiting his portraits of Susan Williams-Ellis that he began during his residency at Plas Brondanw in 2023.
Menna’s paintings explore everyday scenes and objects, often focusing on nature—a tangle of wild plants, seed heads, fruits, flowers, or familiar household items. Her work is not about literal representation but explores her empathy with the humble details of our lives. She celebrates her subjects while revelling in the colours and textures of oil paint on linen.