Fishguard based artist, Michaela Hollyfield, will be displaying her new exhibition titled Time and Tide at the Torch Theatre’s Oriel Joanna Field Gallery this July.

Michaela’s works, predominantly in oil on canvas, is a coming together of several bodies of work and her newest work. During the pandemic, Michaela was drawn to working more representationally, the ambiguity and uncertainty of life during the pandemic led her to want to hold on more to form and representation.

“I found myself returning to nature, observing the changing skies, and finding solace in form, wanting to celebrate the security of nature and landscape once more. You will see this reflected in some of the work exhibited here alongside my more abstract pre pandemic work” said Michaela.

Her work incoorporates motifs which represents a symbolic metaphor to her and the process of painting; ranging from the forest, the fox, the boat, the Lookout Building (near Strumble Head Lighthouse), and most recently St Non’s Chapel. The landscape of her surroundings, the Pembrokeshire coastline, also has a presence in her work.

“Within many of my paintings, the way in which I paint represents a journey. I approach most of my canvases in an arbitrary way, staining them with thin washes of oils and making marks as I feel inclined. After this rush of freedom and expression, of gesture and mark-making, I then take some time to look at what the painting is doing, and how to respond to the visual conversation I have started” added Michaela.

Michaela graduated from Aberystwyth School of Art in 2017 with an MA in Fine Art and exhibits and sells her work online with New Blood Art. She had a residency at Oriel y Parc in September 2019 and produced a body of work influenced by the Story of St Non and the Chapel of St Non some of which is included in this exhibition.

She was invited to exhibit in ‘A Celebration of Welsh Contemporary Painters’ and also recently held a Solo show called ‘Taith’, both at Oriel y Parc. She was also invited to exhibit in the Glasbury Arts Seventeenth Annual exhibition earlier this year as well as exhibiting in galleries local to her.

She is influenced by the work of the symbolist painters Ferdinand Hodler, Edward Munch and the abstract expressionist painters particularly Rothko, Frankenthaler, and the contemporary painter Peter Doig.

Time and Tide will be exhibited from Friday 1 to Friday 29 July at the Torch Theatre, Milford Haven, and can be viewed at all times when the theatre is open. Admission to the Oriel Joanna Field Gallery is free.