CATRIN HOWELL Bestiary 4-24 December 2013 In the Middle Ages, people imagined that exhilarating or even frightening animals lived beyond the known world. There were tales of giant, long-nosed creatures called elephants and of griffins with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle. Artists let their imaginations run wild in depicting creatures of the unknown. The J. Paul Getty Museum Front cover: Antler Forest (detail), 2013, ceramic, 180 x 180 cms 1600 Left: Catrin Howell in her studio, London, 2013
Animal mythology and the interpretation of ancient symbolism is a constant theme in my work; I am still inspired by the Mabinogion, a collection of eleven prose stories based on medieval Welsh manuscripts. This historic narrative combined with folktale and mythology feeds into my work. Animals tend to be the heroes in medieval folklore and recurring themes such as metamorphosis and transformation, as in the story of Taliesin, where humans are transformed into animals, forms the narrative thread in this exhibition. Catrin Howell, November 2013 Illustration from Taliesin www.sacred-texts.com
Mortal sheep graze, of course, dogs bark in the night, badgers stalk the woodlands and the seatrout storm their heroic passages upstream. But there are immortal creatures too, in the grand menagerie of Wales. There are blazing dragons and strange white cattle. There are birds bearing love-messages for poets. Glittering hounds emerge from the underworld with their master the King of Annwn. Pale princely horses pace the legendary highways, and the great toad of Cors Fochno, the oldest being on earth, is consulted as an oracle of the bog. There are chimerical, poetical characters, coming to use often enough from the magical tales of the Mabinogi, the Arabian Nights of Wales; but like all figments of fancy, they are also reflections of truth. Even now Wales is still a country close to the natural order of things, and Welsh artists still find inspiration in the intimacy of animals. Jan Morris, 2001 forward for Ruthin Crafts Centre
Hound head, 2013, ceramic, 29 x 10 cms 650
As a child, going to school in Wales, she [Catrin] would have heard of shape-shifting creatures from folk tales and the Mabinogion. In the story of Taliesin she might have met Gwion Bach, who, pursued by Ceridwen, turns himself into a hare, his pursuer as quickly becoming a hound. Later he recalls, I have fled as a crow, scarcely finding rest...i have fled as a roe into an entangled thicket. Howell s deer whose horns so delicately leaf and bud, or her hares that have grown antlers, share the same ancestry. Working intuitively she does not illustrate stories but creates her own beasts, hybrids of the actual and the imagination, that share qualities of a world where natural and supernatural inhabit the same space. Alongside her understanding of, and familiarity with, real animals, she creates the possibility of metamorphosis, suggestions of the un-ordinary. Judy Dames, Ruthin Crafts Centre catalogue
Hound, 2013, ceramic, 34 x 33 x 4 cms 850
Horse, 2013, ceramic, 8 x 37 cms 860
Running Hare, 2013, ceramic, 46 x 15 x 5 cms 850
Red black bud antlers, 2013, ceramic, 47 x 5 cms 325
Antler Forest, 2013, ceramic, 180 x 180 cms 1600
Antler Forest, 2013, ceramic, 180 x 180 cms 1600
White bud antlers, 2013, ceramic, 47 x 3 cms 325
Bird Head, 2013, ceramic, 16 x 11 x 8 cms 590
CATRIN HOWELL Biography Born 1969 Wales Education 2005 Royal College of Art MA in Ceramics and Glass 1992 University of Wolverhampton. BA (Hons) Three Dimensional Design: ceramics Awards 2007 Arts Council of Wales, Creative Wales Award 1998 Gold Medal in Craft and Design, National Eisteddfod of Wales International Exhibition, Cesky Krumlov, Czech Republic. 1st Prize 1996 Crafts Council setting up grant 1994 Award of Merit, Fletcher Challenge Ceramic Award, Auckland, New Zealand Solo Exhibitions 2013 Bestiary, The Scottish Gallery 2012 Catrin Howell, Ruthin Craft Centre, Wales (with publication) 2009 Galerie Terra Delft, The Netherlands 2006 Mythologies, Glynn Vivian Art Gallery and Museum, Swansea 2001-3 Ruthin Craft Centre, North Wales (touring) Public Collections Ceramic Collection and Archive, Aberystwyth University Amgueddfa Cymru-National Museum of Wales, Cardiff International Ceramics Studio, Kecskemet, Hungary International Gallery of Ceramic Works, Cesky Krumlov State Castle, Czech Republic Shipley Art Gallery, Gateshead Tyne and Wear South Bohemian Art Gallery, Bechyne, Czech Republic The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, USA