Yma ac Acw (Roughly translated to Here and There) is a meditation through art exploring memories of childhood, belonging and a connection to Welshness. 

I was born in 1997 in Henllan, a small village in North Wales about 20 minutes from the sea, at six months old I moved to Blackburn. 

For a large portion of my childhood I existed between these spaces - like a tide coming in and out - living in Blackburn and travelling back to Wales. This stopped as I entered my teenage years with the passing of my grandad in 2009. 

In early 2021 I began to have dreams and nostalgic feelings for these spaces and the feelings I associated with Wales as a space. These feelings led me back to this. The subsequent work is an attempt to capture an emotional resonance and essence of my past. And to explore a sense of belonging and connection to tangential space. 

The work is broken into three parts, portraits, images of space and paintings. These are not landscapes. They are my attempt to capture emotion, feelings and a dialogue between spaces - memories of my past. They’re portraits of pensive spaces - characters in their own right

The images of space. These are not landscapes. They are my attempt to capture emotion, feelings and a dialogue between spaces - memories of my past. They’re portraits of pensive spaces - characters in their own right

The portraits. The project has been a journey and each portrait is a person I have encountered along the way with their own stories, motivations and connection to the coastline.

The paintings. The paintings are my attempt at capturing the same feeling and emotional response to spaces that can’t be caught on camera. Anyone might take the same photograph in the same space but the paintings are my emotions and feelings from those spaces on canvas.