'Maps and Codes' is a themed exhibition which explores the use of symbols to interpret the landscape. Hidden images are revealed using ultraviolet blacklight and messages are coded using flowers. Poppy seeds recreate the lines of the WW1 trenches, roads, hedges and chromatography patterns.
An artist chooses how to reveal some aspects of the world they see while deliberately obscuring or cryptically encoding others. Some codes and symbols are fairly clear, for example, those appropriated from ordnance survey maps to create abstract landscapes; others may include signs made from details of objects, which might not immediately be clear to a general public, but would be immediately apparent to anyone associated with, say, the woollen industry.
Carole has been mapping the landscapes of West Wales, re-interpreting aspects of its industrial and social past through paintings and original prints. Because her technique shuttles between fine art skills and traditional domestic crafts the works reflect a free-ranging, intuitive quality, as rigorously organised as a quilt design.
Maps and Codes is at Artstream Gallery, Cawdor Hall (under the clock) Newcastle Emlyn. Open Tues-Sat 10-5pm June 23rd-July 4th
