Catrin Gwilym

“A journey to understand the world and my place in it is always the starting point to my artwork – and through various mediums attempting to question what it means to belong and also how people and places on the margins fit in to the larger jigsaw. All this came about after being made redundant and my attempt to come to terms with this as a middle aged and disabled Welsh woman. Considering how some doors close and others open in wonderful and unexpected ways. Basically a storyteller trying to find her voice. And this through rummaging the layers of the tale. Collecting and connecting, as a means to find conclusions.”

Catrin Gwilym is a multidisciplinary artist from Porthmadog, who changed career paths after being made redundant at middle age. She studied art through Bangor University’s part-time courses in the community. She currently has an exhibition at Pontio, Bangor, which is her first solo show in a leading Welsh institution.

“This Journal is an account of the last ten years; periods of trying to find new ways of dealing with loss. It is a consideration of locations, dislocations and at times relocations: of opportunities, second opportunities and lack of opportunities and their potential to change lives.

It is a celebration of the places on the peripheries – through wandering, discovering and reflecting in five specific places – looking for the extraordinary in the ordinary, the unusual in the usual, and the unfamiliar in the familiar. But here also there is a lamentation for endings, for thrown-away treasures and things ceasing, whether that be through lack of investment or apathy.

Y Bocs Gwyn at Pontio was the last piece in the jigsaw in terms of exhibiting the work of the Jyrnal, but because of the pandemic the show – which was intended to include several other artists – was cancelled in May 2020. By revisiting the space recently with the film-maker Juliette Daum, I had the opportunity to try to process what had existed, what had been lost, and the things that come our way through new opportunities. And all of this through conclusions and attempting to arrive at conclusions.

More details of her exhibition, ‘Y Mae Stafell’ can be found here