RHIANNON EVANS
Rhiannon Evans was the first DWELL residency artist.
The residency was extended due to the Covid 19 pandemic
and so ran from October 2019 to September 2021.
Re-FORM
Experiments without hypothesis
An exhibition of works made during Rhiannon’s DWELL residency from October 2019 – September 2021.
Re-FORM runs from 25th September- 10th October 2021, Wed - Sun 12 - 5.
Meet the Artist event with tea and cake, when Rhiannon will talk about her work in the exhibition
Sun 26th September 2 - 5.
Re-form presents a dynamic series of images, sculptures and video where choices in making have been made intuitively to produce revealed results rather than intended outcomes. Archival images and objects have been reconstructed and transformed into fragile, surreal forms suggestive of the natural world and landscapes where biology and technology meet.
The residency
Rhiannon Evans began her residency by spending time working at the COU COU studios in the autumn of 2019 and early in 2020. She found the dedicated work time, as well as the extended conversations that we had about her work, helpful as she started to shift her practice from the performative to drawing and painting. During the pandemic we kept in close contact with Rhiannon and talked about her work over Zoom. We decided together to extend her residency by a year because of the interruption of the pandemic.
We introduced her to other artists in the region and also to paula roush in London and Inês Amado in Lisbon and she participated in two of the CREiA RootHome experiential online courses.
Rhiannon exhibited her dynamic folio books in the HOME BOOKS exhibition at COUCOU in May 2021. Read the interview with Rhiannon about her work by art writer Hope Collinson on our Interviews page.
Artist Statement March 2020
"Following directly on from the collaborative residency at Ovada last summer, DWELL has allowed the quiet solitary reflection I have needed to begin developing my thoughts and work.It’s been slow - somewhat fragmented, and slotted in whenever possible. This space, as location and position, is allowing contemplation and providing nourishment.
My memory ebbs and flows slowly and continually backwards and forwards -
time spent surrounded by productive fields- hedgerows of disregarded treasures - a laboratory: isolating, purifying and examining - sea : habitat and companion: predicable and unpredictable - a future of integrated and embodied circuits, systems and networks within and between this new age we have created.
I have made notes, drawings, slept, read, and stayed warm and dry."
Beyond Cardinal South 2016 Solargram
Artist Statement October 2019
"Still rooted in social engagement, a dialogical aesthetic and concepts of a dynamic archive; intimate exchanges through written text and spoken word have been increasingly coming into focus in my work.
Hayley Newman and Sally O’Reilly’s Writing for Performance workshop Slow Moving Words at the Ikon, Birmingham completely changed my relationship with ‘words’; whilst my most recent developing visual imagery examines the current pervading attempts to categorise, contain and measure personal communications and experience, through digital analytics platforms and other systems.
Following a recent solo exhibition, Contingent Passages at Cornerstone Arts, Didcot and the collaborative Summer Residency with artists and biotechnology research scientists at OVADA Studios Oxford, I am using my DWELL time to mull over the various strands of my practices, and examine their ties; the attachments, restrictions and future possibilities.
DWELL is providing me with essential retreat; the opportunity to step back from collaborative making for a while into a quiet and contemplative space of solitary reflection, before moving forwards in new directions."